see his face. ‘The good sisters—’
‘The good sisters will eat their meal, offer their prayers and seek their beds as they do each night, mistress. Your lady should have thought out her plan before launching it.’
She pushed against him. ‘They are expecting me. My lady sent them a message to expect me.’
‘I can assure you that no message arrived at the convent. We have been camped here for the last several weeks and no one from Thaxted has crossed our path … until you did this day.’
Her confidence did crumble then and he felt the fight go out of her. She glanced around the camp and for the first time seemed to realise their number and the dangers they presented to her. If there had been a messenger, Brice’s men had not seen him. There was every possibility that such a messenger would have fled in the other direction if he’d spied their camp and knew he could not get through. Apparently, that messenger did not report his failure to his lady.
‘Take her,’ he repeated softly and he stepped aside so that Stephen could carry out his order.
The lady looked as though she would offer resistance, but she simply nodded and walked off with his men. At least, praise God, she was safe now and it was one less thing he needed to worry over in this volatile situation. By morning she would be his, as would Thaxted Manor and all the lands entailed to it and to him as Lord of Thaxted.
And with the support of Giles’s men from Taerford and some of the king’s forces, Brice would take over the keep, expel the rebels and those who would not pledge to King William, and begin his life as one of the high and mighty instead of remaining a low-born soldier. Taking in a deep breath and exhaling it, Brice knew he looked forwards to much of what yet faced him in the challenging days ahead.
Facing the lady’s fury at his deception was not one of those things.
Hours passed as he saw to preparations for his final assault against the keep as well as more personal ones involving the Lady Gillian. He sent word to the convent to let them know that she was safe and would be returning to her home in due course. A generous donation accompanied the message, smoothing, he hoped, the way that future dealings with the holy sisters would go. He’d watched as many others made the mistake of not respecting the clergy and he was determined not to fall into that error himself.
Finally, several hours after the sun dropped into the west and when night was full upon them, he decided it was time to take the first step towards taking control of his lands … and his wife. Calling out to those closest to him, he walked to his tent. Four men stood guard there, one at each corner, and none looked happy.
‘Problems, Ansel?’ he asked as he approached. All seemed quiet, but their expressions and the very number of them said otherwise. Though this was Ansel’s first battle campaign, he trusted the young man to carry out whatever task he so ordered.
‘Aye,’ Ansel answered in their dialect. ‘She is … the lady is … determined.’ He shook his head as though he had failed and Brice noticed the beginnings of a bruise on the man’s chin.
Brice took hold of the flap of the tent and paused. ‘So long as no harm came to her, I do not question your actions.’
Ansel nodded, but there was still a problem that Brice could not identify. Then Stephen approached.
‘She nearly escaped three times, Brice,’ he explained. ‘Once she got as far as the south perimeter of the camp without being seen.’ Brice glanced at each of the men guarding the tent, seeing then that several sported new scratches or bruises, and then back at Stephen, who let out a breath and shrugged. ‘Blame this on me if you must, but it was the only way to secure her.’
Brice winced at both the words and tone and wondered how they had done it. He nodded to them. ‘Bring something for the lady to eat and then seek out your meal. We will proceed once she’s eaten.’
The men walked away and Brice lifted the tent flap to one side so he could enter. Bending down to avoid knocking into the top of the tent, he stepped inside and stopped. In spite of only one lantern lighting the darkness, he could see her clearly and his mouth dropped open even as he hardened at the sight before him.
The men had driven big wooden stakes into the ground and tied her to them, wrists and ankles bound together and then to the posts. Her head covering gathered around her neck and a gag sealed her mouth. From her struggles against the bindings, her gown twisted high on her legs, exposing their shapeliness to his gaze. Due to the position of her arms and the shifting of the top of her gown, her breasts thrust against the material, their tightened peaks visible through the soft gown.
Brice swallowed, and then again, his mouth suddenly dry. He stepped farther into the tent and dropped the flap behind him. She began to struggle anew as he approached and her efforts caused her gown to shift more, gifting him with a clear view of her thighs and her hips as she turned and tried to pull away. He found himself clenching and releasing his fists as they ached to slide up the expanse of white, soft skin and cup her bottom. Heat pulsed through him then and he thought of all the places he would caress and kiss before the morn.
She mumbled something against the cloth in her mouth and he realised he could not leave her so. Crouching down beside her, he took out his dagger and slit the side of the gag. ‘Easy now, mistress,’ he soothed. With a gentle touch, he smoothed her hair from her face and wiped her cheeks.
Tears. She’d been crying. From what little he’d learned of his betrothed, he knew that this sign of weakness would humiliate her and he had little stomach for that now. He went to the small table and poured some wine from the jug into a metal cup and brought it to her.
‘Here now, drink this.’ He lifted her head and helped her sip until she drank the small amount of wine. After she’d finished, he filled the cup once more and drank it down quickly.
Kneeling at her side, he began to straighten her gown. But when his hand touched her ankle, he could not stop himself from enjoying just a small touch. He slid his hand up to her knee before grasping the hem of the gown. His body urged him to push it higher, to slide up her thigh and between her legs to that place that he could make weep at his caress. Brice fought the desire to explore her body and only her soft words brought him to his senses.
‘I pray thee, my lord. Please do not …’ she whispered.
She did not move at all, and it was a good thing, for the battle of doing the right thing or following his body’s urgings was a near one just then. After a moment that lingered too long, he tugged the length of the gown down to cover her legs and backed away.
The awkwardness between them was broken when Ansel called to him from outside. Brice turned and stepped out, coming back in with a wooden plate for the lady. He placed it on the table and took his dagger once more, sliding it carefully into the knot around her wrists. She gasped as he twisted it, most likely more surprised than anything else, for he took great care not to nick her skin in doing so. It was only when he held out his hand to her that he realised he was still in his hauberk of chainmail and wore his thick leather gloves.
Regardless of the soft look in his gaze at this moment, Gillian did not trust him. Oh, his men had not hurt her yet, but being tied up and gagged and then left for hours on end had tested her patience and courage. Though a virgin, she’d recognised the lust in this man’s gaze when he touched her leg and looked at the way her gown had shifted to expose places better left covered. How long she would remain untouched or unused she did not know and dared not ask.
Still, if she was untied, there was a
