The Mistress of Normandy

“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 to tell him? she wondered wildly. She could not possibly blurt it out: Excuse me, but I cannot contain my passion for you and I need a child, so would you please make love to me?

Gripped by shyness, her tongue thick and clumsy with words she’d never thought to utter to any man, she snatched a yellow violet and rolled it between her fingers. “Rand...I have been thinking on...a matter. I think it is time we were honest about...certain things.”

His eyes dimmed almost imperceptibly. “What things?”

She inhaled a gulp of air. “Well...our feelings. I confess I am graceless with words. I know you have certain desires. I have felt this in the way you hold me, and kiss me.” A blush suffused her face with heat. “Doubtless you hold the favor of many women,” she rushed on, growing more embarrassed with each word, more entrapped in her own awkward speech.

“You presume a great deal,” he said.

She blinked, discomfited by his easy, bemused tolerance. “Of course, you might have been with a woman these weeks past.”

Suppressed laughter gave his voice a compelling richness. “Why don’t you ask me?”

She couldn’t bring herself to frame such a question. “You are free to do as you will. But I was wondering, if you could see your way, perhaps, to act on these feelings.” She lowered her head. “Do you not feel some...some measure of desire for me? That is—”

“Lianna,” he broke in, “I love you.”

Her head snapped up. “So you said,” she whispered. “At least, you said you thought you loved me.”

He stepped forward, brushed a wisp of silver-gilt hair from her temple. “I no longer think so. I know.”

Why did his declaration mean so much to her? She needed only his seed. Still, there was that deep agony within her that had nothing to do with procuring an heir and everything to do with the man standing before her.

Sudden doubts pricked at her. She was married; she could never share more than stolen trysts with Rand. Yet she wanted him so desperately....

He regarded her with a steady gaze. His lips curved into a tender smile. A smile she trusted.

The doubts vanished.

“Well,” she said, wondering if the raw inner tenderness she felt could truly be love. “Well. ’Tis settled, is it not?”

His smile widened. “What is settled?”

She forced herself to face him squarely. “Why, the matter I was trying to speak to you about. You’ll make love to me now, won’t you?”

Six (#u7d520697-4991-57ed-b557-ff347843aa77)

The thrust of an enemy lance could not have pierced Rand more deeply. Her earnest request singed his every nerve with a longing so hot, he burned with it, a frustration so sharp that he could scarce draw breath.

His mouth was dry, his tongue thick, when at last he found his voice. “Lianna, sweet maid, you know not what you ask.”

“Yes,” she whispered, her breath warm as she leaned toward him. “I do.” A pucker—innocent, adorable—turned her lips to a sweet bud. “I suppose you think no worthy lady would ask such a thing, but I want you....” She stepped closer, brought her thighs brushing against his. “And I think you want me.”

Indeed, he thought wildly, how could she mistake the iron-wrought bulge in his braies that reared against her soft, yielding form? “I am a knight,” he said, less forcefully than he would have wished. “I took an oath....”

She fixed him with a steady silver stare. “Every true knight,” she said, her finger tapping lightly against her chin, “is a lover.” She smiled. “So say the troubadours’ lays.”

“The troubadours preferred the sweet torment of yearning to the passing joy of a conquest won.” He spoke quickly, for his resolve flagged with each wild beat of his heart.

Her gaze touched his face, his shoulders, his torso. “And you, Rand. What do you prefer?”

He kept his hands at his sides, for to touch her now would be to lose the last shreds of self-discipline he possessed. “You are far easier to reckon with in my dreams. There, you are only a shadow.” Aye, he thought, in his dreams he could control her...and himself.

She sent him a whisper-soft smile. Her eyes shone, her face glowed, the curves of her flower-strewn body were evident beneath the plain smock she wore. Disconcerted, he moved away.

She set her hands on her hips. “Professions of knightly devotion might be enough for ladies of legend, but such lofty regard is not enough for me.”

“In person,” he conceded, “you are a more earthly goddess.” He met her steady gaze. “Demanding, complex, difficult.”

“Will you let your scruples get in the way of something we both want and need? How can it be wrong?”

He looked down at his big, rough hands, the left one sleek with scars. Too soon, he must put a ring on the finger of another. “I can offer you nothing.”

“You say you love me. Will you call that nothing?”

“I don’t want to dishonor you.”

“You dishonor me by denying my womanhood,” she said, her eyes flashing like quicksilver. “You refuse to acknowledge that I have a mind of my own, a body that sings for yours.”

“That is precisely what I’ve been fighting. Already I love you too much, more than I should.”

An errant breeze caused a blue flower to drift across her cheek; she caught the blossom with her hand and rubbed the petals thoughtfully over her chin. “Before I met you, I knew no love at all. Now you speak of loving too much. I do not understand.”

In her voice he heard all the hurt and bewilderment of an orphan left to the care of castle folk. He yearned to gather her into his arms, to teach her love, yet at the same time he felt a terrible futility, for she would also suffer betrayal from him.

He drew a ragged breath. “All my life I have had self-restraint schooled into me. A man who cannot control himself is doomed to be controlled by others. That is why I turn away from the chevauchées of my fellow knights.” Looking up, he met her wide, unblinking eyes. “Now you’ve catapulted into my life and shaken everything I’ve ever believed in.”