The Mistress of Normandy. Susan WiggsЧитать онлайн книгу.
given me?” He started to pull away. She grasped his hands, leaned up on tiptoe, and kissed him hard on the mouth. Then she stepped back and let her hair fall forward to hide the fire he’d ignited in her cheeks. Peering uncertainly from between her locks, she wondered if her bold behavior appalled him. He’d certainly been disapproving enough of her interest in gunnery. Doubtless she violated every image this knight-errant had of feminine ideals.
He parted her hair with his fingers. With relief, she saw only affection in his smile.
“Would that I could give you more than friendship,” he whispered.
Hope billowed in her chest. “I’ve come here almost every day,” she admitted.
Taking her hand, he pressed his lips to the pulse at her wrist. “Testing your guns?” He sounded both teasing and annoyed.
She shook her head. “Looking for you. And I asked where you’ve been.” He didn’t speak. Raising one eyebrow, she ventured, “Doubtless on knightly business of utmost secrecy.” She fixed him with a probing stare. “But I’ve guessed your secret.”
He fell still, seemed not even to breathe. “Lianna—”
“Don’t worry,” she said, smiling softly. “I’ll not put it about that you’ve chased the Englishman from Eu.”
He blinked. “Chased the—”
“Aye, we heard that the god-don has sailed away.” Excitement danced in her eyes. “Did you fight him? Did you slay the man who came to conquer Château Bois-Long?”
“No blood was spilled.”
“Did he run back to England like the coward he is?” She touched his sleeve. “You wear no colors, my Gascon. Are you for the Armagnacs or the Burgundians?”
“I could ask you the same of your mistress. She is of the blood of Burgundy, yet she houses a supporter of Armagnac.”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know about Gaucourt?”
“His presence at Bois-Long is no secret.”
She regarded him with mock severity. “Perhaps you’re a spy for Burgundy...or the English.”
He grinned. “Suppose I were?”
“Then I would steal your dagger and use it on you.” She took his hand and laid it alongside her cheek. “Talk to me. I want to know you.”
“There is much I would share with you...if I could.”
“Have you a family?”
His expression softened. “If you could term a band of motley men a family.”
“Your men?” She turned to scan the area.
“My comrades. But you won’t find them here.”
“Tell me about them, Rand.”
“They are men like any other. They have mothers, sweethearts...except for the priest, of course.”
She smiled. “Somehow it seems fitting that you would keep constant company with a priest.”
Laughing, he said, “You’d not think so if you knew this priest. He’s more likely to be found ranging the fields on a hunt than in a chapel hearing confessions. He often says mass in muddy boots and falconer’s cuffs.”
“What of your other friends?”
A guarded look made him seem suddenly distant, unapproachable. “I think it is better for us both to keep silent about certain matters.”
Wanting to draw him back to her, she leaned up and kissed him lightly. It wasn’t fair to question him, not when she was full of her own secrets. She couldn’t tell him now that she was the Demoiselle de Bois-Long, and married, with the wrath of the Duke of Burgundy and the King of England down upon her. This glade was their private garden, a place to forget they were each part of someone else’s plan.
“Times are uncertain. I’ll badger you no more,” she said.
Cloaked in wildflowers, the fields beckoned. As they walked, Rand stooped to pick hepaticas, fire-pink gaywings, early yellow violets, and bluets barely furled from their buds. Lianna loved to hear him talk. His rich, musical voice revealed ideas as fine and fanciful as the flowers he gathered. With enchanting whimsy he told her improbable tales of gallantry, unconquerable villains, damsels in distress.
Stopping on a little rise in the middle of the field, he offered her the flowers. She shook her head. “What would you have me do with them?”
“Smell them, for God’s sake. Let them pleasure you.”
She laughed. “Pleasure me? What a silly notion?” She plucked a single stalk of mayapple from his bouquet. “Now this is useful in making a decoction for the grippe.”
He tucked it behind her ear. “To you, everything needs must have a practical use. Why is that?”
“I know of no other way to look at things.” Taking a violet, she stared intently at the blossom, then at the waving profusion of flowers all around her. “In sooth they all seem alike to me.”
He cupped her chin in one hand and rubbed the silken petals over her lips. “Then let me show you.”
Sitting down, he spread his hands and scattered the blossoms. The scent soon brought a flurry of butterflies.
She stepped back, her breath snared in her throat. He was so beautiful, so true of heart. She yearned for a measure of his charming insouciance, the self-assuredness that made him capable of exalting even a lowly mayapple. But, tainted by intrigue and secrecy, she knew she could never share his clear-eyed wonder. Stiffly she sat down beside him. A butterfly flitted between them.
“My sad girl,” he said softly. “Why do you look so sad?”
“I wish I could be like you, Rand. So...whimsical.”
“Whimsical! Dear maid, you unman me.”
“But it’s true. You’re so full of unexpected delights....” She let her voice trail off and frowned. “I am clumsy with words. I know not how to say what I feel.”
“Try, Lianna.”
“I have an emptiness deep inside me, a darkness. In studying weaponry I learned high-flown ideas of science, the timing of fuses, the use of priming irons, but no one ever taught me how to—” She swallowed hard. “You have said I am beautiful, but I cannot believe it because I don’t feel it in my heart. I’ve never thought the attribute of any value.”
She heard the rasp of his quick-drawn breath, saw the unsteadiness of his hand as he picked up the flowers in his lap. He plaited the blossoms into a circlet, put it on her head, let chains of lavender hepatica trail over her shoulders. Placing his arms around her, he lifted her up, out of her wooden sabots, so that she stood with her bare feet on the cool ground.
Her head and shoulders festooned with flowers, her heart pounding with a sense of new awareness, Lianna saw desire flare in his eyes. His admiration made her truly beautiful for the first time. The idea gave her a sudden, deep sense of her own worth, not as a political commodity, but as a woman.
As if he understood, Rand caressed her cheek. “Do you see now? You are lovely, sacred, worthy.”
Shaken, she closed her eyes, spread out her arms and opened her hands as if to grasp the very air around her. Filled with the scent of flowers and the enlightenment his words brought, she tasted the quiet exultation of a dream fulfilled. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
Her thoughts tumbled over one another. It was right. It had to be right. She wanted him now, not just for the child he could give her, but to satisfy the yearning in her newly awakened heart, to unleash the desire she recognized in his taut body and emerald-bright eyes. His hands were hard fists at his sides, as if he were clenching them against the urge to touch her.
How