Saxon Lady

“Say your piece, demoiselle,” Fitz Autier said. “You’ve had no trouble speaking your mind before now.”

They climbed to the topmost floor and stepped into the circular tower that was her father’s bedchamber. Fitz Autier freed her hands.

Aelia felt the blood rush from her head as she gazed into the once-familiar room. Wallis’s belongings were gone. The feather bed had been stripped of its hangings, and Wallis’s trunks were missing. One thin blanket lay at the foot of the bed, and a massive suit of armor had been placed in the farthest corner beside a three-legged stool.

Her father had been dead merely a month, yet this usurper had moved in as if he had every right to do so. As if her father had never been lord here.

“None of this is yours!”

“You think not, my lady?” He took hold of her arm and led her roughly to the window. “Observe. All that you see is mine. You are vanquished, Saxon.”

Aelia turned to slap his arrogant face, but he caught her hand and pressed it against the cool metal hauberk covering his chest. ’Twas the place where no normal heart pulsed, but a cold and cruel one.

Yet he did not strike back. He lowered his head, until his lips were but a breath away from hers.

And then he kissed her.

Chapter Five

’T was meant to punish her for her impertinence, her utter disregard for his authority. Lady Aelia needed to understand who was in control at Ingelwald—and it was not she.

Lust played no part in his actions. He was merely demonstrating his mastery over her when he urged her mouth to open under his, when his tongue touched hers, when he tipped his head for better access to her lips.

Yet he damned the chain hauberk that kept him from feeling her soft breasts pressing against his chest, and the fluttering of her heart. Her shoulders were small and yielding under his war-hardened hands. Her back was narrow, her stature surprisingly delicate, considering her fiery nature.

And Mathieu wanted to consume her. He slid his hands around her waist, touching the crests of her hips as he lowered his mouth to her jaw, then her ear and her throat, sipping, tasting Aelia. She was a powerful elixir, drugging him, dissolving his common sense.

And when he realized that, he pulled away.

Mathieu released Aelia so suddenly she stumbled back a step before regaining her balance. Her face was flushed and he saw confusion in her green eyes, but Gilbert de Bosc pushed open the door to the chamber and strode in before either of them managed to say a word.

“Your supper, Sir Mathieu,” he said, looking for a place to set the platter of food.

“Put it on the bed,” Mathieu said as two more of his men entered. They carried a large trunk and a washstand, and set them on the floor in the far corners of the room.

Mathieu sat down on the bed and made a deliberate show of turning his attention to the food. The kiss meant naught. ’Twas only to demonstrate his complete dominance over her.

“There are Saxons below who are ready to swear fealty to you, Sir Mathieu.”

“No!”

Shock and outrage rang clear in Aelia’s tone, but Mathieu studiously avoided looking at her. He poured ale into a cup and took a healthy swallow. “Give them a meal and have them wait for me.”

“You bribe them for their loyalty!” Aelia cried. “’Tis a thin mark of fidelity that you win here, Norman.”

Mathieu stood abruptly. “What makes you so sure, Lady Aelia? What has changed for these people, besides the name of their liege lord?”

“They—”

“Naught,” he said as he walked to the door. “They will go on as before, but in the future, they will have an overlord who will protect them.”

“Who will grow rich through their labors.”

“As your father did not?”

“Our people respected and revered Wallis! He was a fair and generous man—”

“Who overindulged his offspring. Cease your chatter now, and partake of this meal before it’s taken away!”

He walked out and let the heavy door slam behind him. “She is not to leave this room,” he said to the guards who awaited him.

“Yes, baron.”

He could not get down the stairs fast enough to suit him. The woman was impossible. Tedious. And he had more important things to do than dally with her in the chamber he planned to use for the duration of his stay at Ingelwald. He did not care whom it had belonged to before his victory here.

There was no weapon in the room. He wouldn’t leave her armed, but Aelia could not help but hope she would find a forgotten dagger among his things.

She pulled the door open, but came face-to-face with two Norman guards who would not let her pass. “Am I a prisoner here?” she demanded.

“Yes, my lady,” one of the men replied.

Aelia huffed indignantly and returned to her father’s chamber, slamming the door behind her. She hoped it fell off its hinges.

But when it did not, she was reduced to pacing the length of the room while she cursed her Norman captor. Repeatedly.

If she’d been hungry before, that kiss had taken away her appetite. What had she been thinking, allowing him such intimacy? The man had butchered her people and taken away their homes. He’d bound and imprisoned her brother, a mere child. And now he’d usurped her father’s own chamber.

The truth was, she had not been thinking. His kiss had been pure sensation—a tingling heat that had frozen her mind but warmed her body. She hadn’t realized that a simple kiss could do such a thing, and wondered if Fitz Autier had felt the same.

No, most likely not. Or he would not have broken away from her just as she’d begun to feel the same ravishing sensations she’d experienced the night before. Aelia took a deep breath and turned her thoughts to a more productive line. ’Twas pointless to give any further consideration to that kiss, or anything she’d felt while imprisoned in his tent.

She had to figure a way to defeat the Norman knight. Mayhap his army was stronger than hers, but if Aelia could kill Fitz Autier, his men would have no choice but to surrender and return Ingelwald to its rightful masters.

How was she to kill him? Without a weapon, there was little hope of that.

Aelia sat down on the edge of the bed and eyed the platter. She had not eaten since the night before, yet food no longer interested her. There was a gnawing pain at her center that had naught to do with hunger. Her belly roiled at her defeat, her imprisonment, her humiliation.

Her life should have been forfeit when Selwyn refused to surrender. Yet she still lived and breathed, while he lay dead in the courtyard.

The line of bodies had not been as long as Aelia had anticipated. Only twenty Ingelwald men lay dead, alongside another twenty Normans. Even so, none of those brave Saxons had had to die. If the greedy William had not sent his knights to every corner of England, there would have been no reason for the death and destruction wrought over these last two years.

Her father would still be alive.

Never had her need for his counsel been so great, nor her desire for his fatherly embrace. Aelia felt like a lost child again, frail and vulnerable, and in need of protection. Wallis had always provided that.

She pressed one hand against her chest as if she could hold in her anguish, and dropped to her knees beside the bed. Her father was gone and she’d had little time to shed her tears when, weeks ago, they’d put him in the ground. Tears pooled in Aelia’s eyes now as she lowered her head to the bed and wept for her father and Godwin, and all that had been lost.

Mathieu was weary of war. After two years of death and destruction, he wanted nothing more than to settle here at Ingelwald in peace. He was no fool, though. The Saxons of Wallis’s fyrd who’d just sworn fealty were no more loyal to him than they were to King William. They’d merely done the most expedient thing in order to get on with their lives.