Salisbury. The stone structure of walls and towers on the natural rock-based mound forming a cliff above the river would hold all but the most determined army at bay. He frowned at Sir Thomas de Byton’s busy figure in the distance. He did not like the de Longspey commander, but the man was capable and quick to carry out orders. Gervase’s lips twisted. Preferred the authority of a man to that of a woman, no doubt. Perhaps he could be left to hold the castle in Fitz Osbern’s name. So as the winter sun struggled to the meagre heights of mid-day, Gervase and his men-at-arms repaired to the Great Hall. The servant girls hastily commandeered from the village had been busy. Scents of roast meats and newly baked bread wafted across the bailey. Tables had been put up on trestles. His men crowded in to take their seats. Fitz Osbern, with Hugh accompanying him, walked forward to the dais where the two women waited.
Very pretty, Gervase acknowledged dispassionately, his second meeting of the day with Rosamund de Longspey confirming his first impressions in the bailey, and he was not a man immune to a pretty woman. There his quick assessment had taken in her vibrant colouring and glowing skin, the cold wind having brought a delicate tint to her face. The formidably straight nose, and the strikingly beautiful arch of her brows, spoke of nothing but trouble for himself. A woman, not a girl—the rumours had been wrong—who had far too much sense of her own importance. Came of growing up in the household of the Earl of Salisbury where her will would never have been thwarted, if he knew anything about it. But how she could be the child of the second marriage he could not guess. Nor did she follow the usual de Longspey colouring or feature … There was a little tug at his memory, but one that promptly eluded him. No matter. She was not to his taste. And the mystery of the de Longspey heiress aside, Rosamund de Longspey was here and claiming the castle as her own and, thus, she was a hindrance to his plans, which had otherwise worked to smooth perfection. Unexpectedly, uncomfortably, he was conscious of where her hand had pressed against his chest, of her slim figure held within the protection of his arms—even if she had felt the need to belabour him with her fists. Until she had fought against him, for just one heated moment, she had fitted perfectly against him so that he was conscious of every curve and flat plane of her flesh against his—he pushed the memory away. She would not be allowed to hinder him. His father’s ruined inheritance and sullied pride had both been superbly avenged. The castle was his—as would be the other two Marcher fortresses before the week was out.
He caught the condemnation in the lady’s eyes as she watched him approach from the high chair on the dais, read the contempt in the bold and supercilious stare. An uncivilised lout, was he? He quelled a sudden urge to laugh, well aware of his careworn and mud-splattered appearance. He must look exactly that—a border robber without finesse. She doubtless saw him as a penniless adventurer, boorish and illiterate, with nowhere to call his home but some squalid fortress of mud and timber. Now this lady was quite a different cauldron of eels, and had dressed for the occasion. And he’d wager she’d done it deliberately. A vixen, was the Lady Rosamund. The silk gown with its embroidered edgings to hem and sleeves, the veil secured by a matching embroidered filet were completely impractical for life in such a fortress on the far-flung edge of the kingdom. Yet the deep green enhanced the glowing translucence of her skin, the intense colour of her eyes, the rose-pink of her pretty mouth … Gervase Fitz Osbern breathed deeply and brought his wandering attention back into line.
She was simply a problem that he must solve, a vixen to be turned out of her lair. So she had dressed to put him at a disadvantage, had she? As she had, standing on the dais before him, the advantage of height over him. Well, he could change the latter if he could do nothing about the former. He came to the dais, stepped up, and halted before this unlooked for problem to be solved. And it struck him as he glared down into the beautiful face. Despite the flash of wrath in her eyes and the challenge to his authority in her very appearance, if he were not careful he might just feel a need to … well, to protect her, he supposed.
Rosamund de Longspey barely reached his shoulder.
His thick lashes hid a sudden gleam in his eye. The lady would get no protection from him, however decorative or vulnerable she might appear. His first priority, very simply, must be to get her out of his castle.
Rosamund had set the scene carefully. She had deliberately taken the lord’s high-backed chair, the only such chair in the Hall, to stamp her authority on the proceedings. As it had given her great pleasure to oust Thomas de Byton from his habitual seat and force him to take a more lowly stool, now it would give her equal satisfaction to do the same to Fitz Osbern. She watched him approach, never once taking her eyes from his face. If he was aware of her cunning handling of the occasion, he gave no recognition of it. He turned his head to exchange some comment with the other knight who had arrived with him. So she took the time to re-appraise him. Well! He had not combed his hair, but had at least used his fingers to give it some semblance of order. He might have brushed his clothes free of the worst of the mud and had abandoned his cloak, although he still wore sword and dagger, but his boots needed more than a cursory clean. He still looked like a marauding brigand.
She rose slowly to her feet.
The knight halted before the dais, bowed with token good manners to the two women, then stepped up, almost planting his mired boots on the edge of Rosamund’s silk gown. Intimidatingly close to her, a menacingly looming figure, Rosamund found that she had to fight not to step back. She held her ground, but the knight merely dragged forward a stool and sat without comment, without courtesy, even before she and her mother had taken their own seats.
‘Ladies.’ He swept the pair with an indifferent and preoccupied gaze. ‘Let me make you known. I am Gervase Fitz Osbern. This is Hugh de Mortimer.’
Rosamund sat, inclined her head, very much the great lady. Her fears were justified. They were nothing more than border lords, both of them. No better than the leaderless rabble who preyed on the unwary. Nothing to compare with the sophistication of the noble de Longspeys and those who visited Salisbury from King Henry’s royal court. Thus there was a touch of arrogance in her cool reply.
‘I am Rosamund de Longspey. Let me make you known to my mother. Lady Petronilla de Longspey, Dowager Countess of Salisbury.’
‘We welcome your hospitality, lady. Smell’s good after a morning’s work.’ It was de Mortimer who responded, rubbing his hands together, his first words for Rosamund, but then his interest centred on the widow. ‘I knew your husband a little, my lady. I last met him at the coronation of King Henry four years back. I heard of your loss. You must regret his untimely death.’
‘Yes. Thank you. It was unexpected.’ The Countess accepted the condolences with unruffled grace.
‘I thought your daughter must have been younger. That you had not been married to Salisbury for so very long.’ There was a decided twinkle in de Mortimer’s eye. ‘I did not think you old enough to have a daughter of marriageable age herself.’
To her astonishment, Rosamund watched her mother’s face grow pink, her eyes hidden by a down-sweep of fine lashes. Rosamund did not think she had ever seen her mother react in such a charmingly self-conscious manner. But Petronilla’s reply was quite composed as she saw fit to explain. ‘Rosamund is not of Salisbury’s blood, my lord, but my daughter of my first marriage to John de Bredwardine. I was married at a very young age, you see. It is simply that she took my lord of Salisbury’s name on my marriage. Earl William … well, he insisted on it.’
‘I see. You have my sympathies, lady.’ De Mortimer’s response was brusque in words, but gentle in tone. ‘As I recall, the Earl was always a man to get his own way.’
Petronilla smiled hesitantly. ‘Indeed, sir, I …’
Rosamund could wait no longer. She must stake her claim to her position in this castle immediately. With a stern glare at her mother, who promptly lapsed into a flushed silence, Rosamund gave a signal to her steward, Master Pennard,
