The Warrior

Apparently unconvinced, Dena trilled another strident laugh. “ ’Tis not only gossip, milord. Why, I could tell you things I’ve seen. . . . My Lady Ariane is not so pure. Know you that in the past she oftentimes left the castle unattended and went to the wood to meet her lover?”

The maid’s malicious tale struck Ranulf like a blow to his vitals, arousing savage memories and sending his thoughts spinning backward in time. In his mind’s eye, he saw not Ariane, but the noblewoman who had borne him, the mother he had never known, slipping from the castle to consort with her peasant lover, to carry on her adulterous affair. With vivid intensity he remembered the pain and fear her betrayal had caused him his life long, how she had destroyed any possibility of hopes or dreams. . . .

Reacting blindly, Ranulf struck his fist on the table. “Enough!”

The sharp command silenced Dena’s coarse chatter.

Scarcely seeing her, Ranulf turned a dark look on the serving maid. “I give you leave to go. I no longer require your presence this evening. And in future, I suggest you refrain from discussing matters that are not your concern.”

Alarm glinting in her eyes, Dena hastily rose from the table and bobbed a fearful curtsey. When she had gone, Ranulf sat toying moodily with his eating dagger, carving patterns in the remnants of a meat pie.

At his other side, Payn watched him with a barely concealed frown. The two of them sat alone, as most of Ranulf’s men were playing at dice near the great hearth, while the serfs cleared the trestle tables.

“That lazy wench doubtless knows sloth intimately,” Payn observed quietly, “but she lies when she suggests her former lady has been slack in her duties.”

Ranulf grunted in agreement. The reports he had been given concerning Ariane’s toils suggested that she had obeyed his every command without complaint. And to his knowledge, she had not repeated her outrageous claim of being his wife. He had nothing to rebuke her for—which perversely only served to increase his fury. The uncertainty Dena had just raised in his mind did naught to calm him, either. Had the wench spoken the truth? Did the Lady Ariane often leave the castle unattended to sojourn in the wood with a lover?

“Dena grows overbold, methinks,” Payn murmured, “since you granted her respite from her duties. She considers herself your favorite, but I wonder that you permit her presumption. Her buxom charms are notthat spectacular.”

Ranulf nodded absently. From the start he’d regretted the rash impulse that had led him to raise Dena to her lady’s place, but he stubbornly refused to countermand the order. He had acted irrationally, out of rage at Ariane’s maneuver with the bedsheets, but he could not back down now, not and hold a shred of hope for respect from the people of Claredon. In this instance particularly, it was imperative he prove that he meant what he said, and that his wrath was not to be taken lightly. Soon enough he would have to consider how to make a tactical retreat. King Henry would doubtless raise objections to one of his noble subjects—even a traitor’s daughter—being forced into servitude as a slave.

Meanwhile, Dena grew overly bold, Ranulf admitted. In truth, Payn would have been astounded to learn he had not availed himself of Dena’s obviously eager desire to share his bed. But the coarse, lushly endowed wench held little appeal for him. He had wearied of her company within a day.

All too often he found himself remembering the infuriating, defiant, highborn lady who had once been his betrothed. No peasant, however winsome, could compare favorably to Ariane. Her elegance, her regal grace, her sweet woman’s scent, even her tart tongue, held an allure for him that, absurdly, he could not shake. The Saints knew he had tried. Yet he could not dismiss her from his mind . . . or his body. Every time he saw her, he felt a stirring in his groin. Merely looking at her made him hungry.

And his masculine instincts made him keenly aware that others of his men felt as he did, harboring the same desire to bed her. She possessed a cool sensuality that any warm-blooded male would find challenging.

Her own men no doubt felt it as well. Especially that fair-haired lad called Gilbert who followed her around like a drooling pup. Even now Gilbert was glaring daggers at him from the length of the hall.Was this one of the lovers Dena had spoken of? The lover Ariane met in the forest?

Beside the young clerk sat the elderly priest and the Claredon steward—which reminded Ranulf of another incident that had inflamed his temper.

“Did you know,” he demanded resentfully, “that cursed steward tried to pass off a dozen miscalculations in the accounts as my own error this morning?”

“No doubt he thought you could not tally,” Payn said sympathetically. “You will have to appoint your own steward, my lord.”

Ranulf nodded and drank deeply of his wine, which had the benefit of being unsalted. He could cipher and read well enough to know when he was being deceived. “Do all the folk here think me a lackwit?”

Not answering at once, Payn picked up a lute and lazily began plucking a tune. The knight was an adequate musician, and possessed a clear, melodious voice. “I fancy they consider you to have ill used their lady,” he said finally, at the end of a verse.

“Ill used?”Ranulf’s expression darkened as he muttered, “I have not used her half as ill as I should have. She is fortunate I did not clap her in chains for her treachery.”

“We have all suffered a woman’s deceit at one time or another. At least the Lady Ariane felt she had sufficient claim to declare herself your wife.”

Ranulf narrowed his gaze dangerously. “Do you defend the wench?”

“Not I, my lord,” Payn asserted blandly. “But I fear you are not winning the battle. Perhaps you would be wise to change your strategy.”

“Beseech me not on her behalf,” Ranulf snapped.

“Not onher behalf, my lord, but your own. You know I serve only your interests. The Lady Ariane claims an uncommon support among her people, wherein lies her strength—”

“Lady?I told you not to call her that.”

Payn shrugged. “I fear the title of ‘lady’ is not something you can take from her merely by decree.”

Morosely, Ranulf stared into his wine, aware his vassal was right. The woman he had unlawfully deemed a slave was every inch a noble lady. Despite the rags she now wore, her blood and breeding showed. Ariane held herself as regally as a queen . . . proud, indomitable, beautiful. With all his show of might, he had been unable to cower her.