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He shook his head. “No fight, Rosaleen, and you may keep your curiosity to yourself. It’s no concern of yours, just as you are no concern of mine. I’ll take you to my brother and leave you in his care, and then I shall be on my way. If God is truly gracious, we’ll never set eyes on one another again.”
“Save on the day of your execution, of course,” Rosaleen returned sweetly. “Will not your brother be surprised to see you after ten years?”
Hugh made a snorting sound. “You’ve no need to worry, Rosaleen. He’ll not turn you away. You’ll get to London.”
“That’s not what I meant. And I can very well get to London without any help from you, Hugh Caldwell, so you needn’t think I’m worried about anything at all. I simply wondered whether your brother wouldn’t be surprised to see you. And what of the rest of your family? What will they think to have you suddenly come riding into your village after having been gone so long? Why, if it’s truly been ten years, you must have been little more than a child when you left.”
Hugh laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “God’s bones, what a chattering little creature you are, Rosaleen no-name. And if you’re not worried about anything at all, then why do you keep looking about as though you expect someone to jump out at us any moment?”
“I’m not…” Rosaleen stopped herself. In truth, she was worried. They were traveling on a main road, out in the open for any and all to see. She had tried to impress upon Hugh Caldwell the need to ride more secretively, but the arrogant beast had insisted they would be fine…kept safe by himself, of course. It would serve him right if her uncle and all his men came riding down upon their heads.
“Why will you not answer my questions?” she asked, changing the subject. “How old were you when you left home? Ten and five years of age? Ten and six?”
“I’ll not let anything happen to you, Rosaleen,” he assured her, changing the subject, as well, “and I’ll certainly not let anything happen to me, so you may rest easy.”
“Well, God’s mercy, Hugh Caldwell, I’m glad to hear it,” Rosaleen replied with sarcastic relief. “I’d not want anything to happen to you, either, before I get a chance to see you hang.”
Hugh sighed loudly. “You, my sweet, are a true example of the gentle flower of womanhood. Your sharp tongue causes me to wonder if your uncle wasn’t beating the wrong person. It seems that the one who’d need the forcing would be the man picked to marry you, not the other way around.”
Rosaleen gasped furiously. “Oh!”
“What a dread fate it would be,” Hugh continued pleasantly, “waking each morn to be greeted by that sharp little tongue. On the other hand, of course, there is your soft body to make some recompense for your shrewish nature, as I know firsthand.” He grinned at her lecherously.
“Why, you…you…you…”
Hugh clucked and shook his head. “No, I cannot think even that would make marriage to you a pleasant prospect. Are you certain this fellow your uncle chose wanted to wed you, Rosaleen? I find it very hard to believe.”
“Oh, you wretch!” She knew very well that he was baiting her, purposefully trying to anger her. She knew, too, that she was behaving exactly like the shrew he called her. It wasn’t like her to behave so badly, but then, she had never before found herself in the company of such a crude, infuriating man. “Yes, he wished to wed me, though you may choose not to believe it if you like. In truth, Hugh Caldwell, I don’t care what you believe of me.”
Hugh was disappointed with her tame answer. He had insulted her so beautifully that he’d been certain she would have flown into a good rage at the very least. Instead, she seemed to have understood his intent and had calmed herself and answered readily. She was smart, little Rosaleen no-name, and if there was one thing Hugh avoided as he would the plague, it was smart females. He’d have to keep his wits about him or he’d shortly find himself behaving decently, and the ten years he’d spent cultivating himself to do otherwise would be for naught. He’d already been too damned nice to her as it was. In truth, it might be said that he’d behaved chivalrously, a thought that actually made him shudder.
“I see,” he said. “Then if your chosen mate was so hot to wed you, sweet, what was the trouble? Was he not to your liking? Or wasn’t he good enough for such a fine lady?”
He’d meant the words as he meant everything he said, mockingly, but her reaction, the look on her face, made him regret speaking them.
Rosaleen shut her eyes and tried to push away the image of Simon of Denning. “No, he was just so…” How could she explain? How could she put Sir Simon’s huge, terrifying hands…hands matted with the blackest of hair, hands that groped and squeezed and hurt…how could she put them into words? How could she relate his cruelty, his lust, his strength, which made her know only too well how easily he could crush her to his will when it pleased him to do so? God’s mercy! She didn’t want to think of him! She didn’t want to remember what it felt like to be shoved up against a wall and held there by the weight of his hard body, fighting nausea when he vised her jaw between two strong fingers and forcibly opened her mouth so that he could thrust his tongue inside, or wincing at the pain of his strong fingers squeezing and pinching her breasts, or wanting so much to faint so she wouldn’t have to feel the hardness of his sex as he rhythmically rocked it against her, speaking his crude, filthy words about what he was going to do to her when they were finally wed.
Twice he had actually found his pleasure with her that way, pushing himself against her, grunting like a hog eating its swill, until he finally shuddered with his release. Rosaleen had almost been relieved when he had, for at least he had let her go and, with the laughter of contentment, had patted her like a dog and jested of how he would have to suffer with the wetness she had wrought in his chausses.
He’d been so pleased on those two occasions, so pleased, while she had felt so sick and helpless.
“Rosaleen.” Hugh Caldwell spoke to her. She felt a gentle touch on her cheek. “Rosaleen.” His voice was strangely tender.
She opened her eyes.
The horses had stopped moving, and she and Hugh Caldwell were sitting on their mounts in the middle of the road, perfectly still. He was leaning down from his higher position, gazing at her with an expression of deep concern while his hand stroked her cheek. He was such a beautiful sight that she couldn’t help but stare.
“What?” she asked dumbly. She couldn’t remember what they’d been discussing.
He ran his thumb over her cheek. “Are you all right, little sweeting?”
“Yes,” she whispered, still staring at him. She never wanted to stop, for when she looked at Hugh Caldwell she didn’t think even vaguely about Simon of Denning.
Rosaleen’s skin felt softer than silk beneath Hugh’s callused hand, and he didn’t want to stop touching her. The change she’d undergone when she’d thought of the man her uncle had betrothed her to had first stunned, then enraged him. It was clear that the man had hurt her badly, else her beautiful face never would have grown so stricken. He wanted to kill the bastard. He wanted to wipe that look of misery off Rosaleen’s face. Permanently. All he could think of at the moment, however, was a temporary solution. And she would probably never know what a sacrifice it was.
Slowly he withdrew his hand and straightened in his saddle.
“I was ten and six when I left my home,” he announced, nudging his steed, Saint, forward.
Rosaleen’s little mare followed, as Hugh had expected she would, and in a moment her mistress had shaken her dismals and gazed up at him with interest, as he had also expected she would.
“Ten and six!” she repeated with amazement, all thoughts of Sir Simon thoroughly displaced. “Were you all alone? What made you leave?”
Hugh smiled. He hadn’t known Rosaleen no-name very long, but already he could read her like a monk’s new manuscript. He had never before spoken of the time he had left his home, yet here he was, about to reopen all his old wounds in order to distract a silly, sharp-tongued female. The idea almost made him laugh. The great Hugh Caldwell, famed for his hardness and lack of heart, behaving like any other damned fool for the sake of a mere female. He could scarce believe it, and desperately hoped none of his acquaintances would ever hear of it.
“I was alone,” he began, “and more frightened than I was willing to admit, though of course I considered myself very brave, being as foolish as any sixteen-year-old is…”
Over the next few hours he told her of his life, those parts he could bear to tell, from the moment he had left home to all the adventures he’d had, including his sojourn in France, from whence he had just returned as a soldier for King Henry. Rosaleen listened raptly, laughing when the tale grew humorous and looking suspiciously teary when she thought it sad, and Hugh allowed himself to be amused at her interest in what his life had been.
Women! he thought silently. They were all the same, even this beautiful little shrew. They all seemed to think they knew what a man wanted and needed, but he’d never yet met the female who could even begin to understand the things that he barred so tightly from his heart.
“What will you do now, Hugh Caldwell?” Rosaleen asked. “Your brother will want you to stay with him in…where did you say you came from?”
“I didn’t. And I’m not going to. We’ll just keep our destination a little secret, shall we? That way neither of us will know what to expect.”
The stiffness of his tone said more than his words did. For all that he was a big, muscular fighting man, it was plain to Rosaleen that he was as nervous about going home to face his family as a naughty little boy who’d done something bad might be, and the very thought softened her heart. Perhaps she didn’t want to have him hanged, after all.
“Very well, Hugh Caldwell. It shall be a secret.”
Hugh glanced at her suspiciously. “That meek tone suits you not, Rosaleen no-name. Much more of that and I’ll be thinking you’re not the same lady who called me every unthinkable name in King Henry’s English this very morn.”
She reddened. “And with good reason! Until I am proved otherwise, I shall continue to believe that you are exactly what I have proclaimed you.”
“Why, Rosaleen,” he uttered with feigned surprise, “should you like me to make proof of your innocence? There is nothing, I promise you, in all of God’s earth that would please me more.”
“You, sir, are a bastard,” she replied, keeping her eyes forward and wondering if she shouldn’t reconsider having him hanged.
“And your mouth, my lady, needs cleansing. How is it that your uncle ever allowed you to use such language?”
Rosaleen laughed bitterly. “It was from him that I learned it, my lord. Sometimes it was my only defense against him, though I was loath to so lower myself.”
Again, Hugh felt a fierce need to kill the man who’d beaten her.
“Rosaleen,” he said, “I’m going to do something I’ve not done in a long, long time.”
“Oh? Behave decently, you mean?”
“No,” he returned dryly. “I am going to beg your pardon for what I said a moment ago. About your language. It was amiss in me to judge you so hastily, and I’m sorry.”
Rosaleen bit her lip to keep from laughing. It was evident that Hugh Caldwell was sorely unused to apologizing for anything at all. “Your apology is accepted, Hugh Caldwell, but only on the condition that you answer my question about what you mean to do once we reach your childhood home. Do you intend to stay there or no?”
“I’ll only stay long enough to make certain you are taken care of, Rosaleen, and then I will leave. I am to become my own man,” he added before she could ask why he wouldn’t stay. “There was a fellow I fought beside in France, a baron named John Rowsenly, who possessed a fief called Briarstone, which he gambled away to me one night. I hadn’t meant to keep it, as it was his family home, but he was killed at Agincourt, and I have determined that I shall go and make my life there as best I can.”
He glanced at her and saw that she was gazing at him in disbelief.
“His people will be expecting me,” he went on, “for I sent them a missive regarding their lord’s death and assuring them that I would come and take care of them.”
She kept staring, and he said, almost defensively, “I cannot let them sit unprotected any longer. Any band of wandering knaves might wreak havoc, seeing the place unmanned. Rowsenly was a fool to wager away his holdings, but his people don’t deserve to be left alone because of it. I’m no great lord, but I can manage a small fief such as Briarstone without any trouble, I vow, and hold it safe against any intruders.”
Rosaleen regarded the masculine profile he offered her, then let her gaze wander over his broad shoulders, his hard, lean body and long, muscular arms and legs. His hands were as big and hard as the rest of him, yet looked agile and skilled. He was a beautiful man, a fighting man, and she had seen enough of such men to know that he was good at his trade. He’d have no difficulty protecting his little fief, she decided, and he already spoke of Briarstone with a pride of ownership, though he’d not yet set eyes on the place. It must be a very small estate, indeed, for she had never before heard of it.
“Rowsenly left no heirs? No wife or children?” she asked.
“Not that I know of. He never spoke of any, and when I won the deed to the place he assured me it was mine and no one else’s.”
“The king has a say in such matters, Hugh Caldwell, though you may not be aware of it. He could declare Sir Rowsenly’s lands forfeit to the throne and deed them to one of his favorites as a reward. It’s his right as your liege, you know.”
Her words brought a smile to Hugh’s lips. She was a high-handed little thing, thinking him so ignorant as to need such instruction. He was tempted to play the idiot and let her spend the next hour making a fool of herself. God’s mercy, it was going to be pleasant to see the look on her face when they finally rode through the gates of Castle Gyer and she realized just exactly who his brother was.
“I must needs take my chances on the king’s leniency, then, will I not?” Hugh asked, keeping his smile to himself. In truth, he had already sought the king’s approval for his taking of Briarstone, right after he had learned of John Rowsenly’s death. King Henry had offered to make a knight of him more times than Hugh could count, and when Hugh had appeared before him after Agincourt he had offered to do so once again, insisting that it was only right that one of his best soldiers, as well as the brother of one of his most favored barons, be knighted. But Hugh had refused, and instead had asked for the king’s favor regarding the matter of Briarstone. Henry had been only too happy to make him the master of the place, telling Hugh quite truthfully that it wasn’t so grand a fief that he’d ever want to make a gift of it to anyone who’d done him a good service. Hugh had been relieved once Henry’s approval had been given, for he hated seeking the favor of any man, even his king, and had vowed immediately afterward that he would never again lower himself in such a way.
“Aye, that you will, Hugh Caldwell,” she answered, following the words with a tsking sound. “You’re a stubborn devil, and that’s as certain as the new moon rising. I think even Henry himself would have trouble standing against such a one as you.”
“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll not even give it a try,” Hugh replied confidently.
“Hugh Caldwell! ‘Tis your king you speak of!”
“Well, of course it is, Rosaleen. Who did you think I meant?”
“Oh, you are a devil,” she said, pursing her lips in disapproval. “I’ll wager your brother had his hands full when you were a boy.”
Her words sent the oddest sensation tingling down Hugh’s spine, and memory after memory waved in his mind. They were good memories, things he hadn’t let himself think of for a long time. Unable to stop himself, he laughed, and unwittingly gifted her with a smile…a real, true, honest, rare smile, not one invented from the depths of his anger and bitterness.
“That he did, Rosaleen no-name. That he most certainly did.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_ee4fd112-e02e-5fed-9c14-7e5cbef55cba)
“I’ll not take my clothes off just because you tell me to, Hugh Caldwell!”
Rosaleen backed away, looking wildly around for some heavy object to throw, but Hugh kept coming at her, slowly and surely.
“Don’t be a fool, Rosaleen. I’m not going to ravish you. I only want to put some of this salve on your back, and then I’m going to put you to bed.”
“Ha!” Rosaleen cried, bumping into a table as she moved around the small room. “You admit your evil intentions, you…you…lewd fiend!”
Hugh gritted his teeth and felt a headache coming on. He was tempted to throw the ointment the innkeeper’s wife had given him that morn right out the window. If he hadn’t known that Rosaleen was suffering badly after their day’s long ride, he would have done just that, without the least hesitation, but she was suffering and he was going to put the salve on her. The girl was too damned stubborn to know what was good for her.
Drawing in a breath, he tried to speak more calmly. “Be reasonable. Your back pains you, and you’re hungry, and you’re so weary that you’re about to fall on your face. Let me put a little of this on your back to give you ease, then I’ll go downstairs and fetch you something to eat while you get into the bed. How does that sound?”
Wonderful, Rosaleen thought, but that didn’t mean she was going to disrobe in front of the likes of Hugh Caldwell.
“I’ll put the salve on myself,” she countered, “and you may have one of the serving maids bring me something to eat.”
Hugh sighed, wondering if he’d ever met a more stubborn female in his life and realizing at once that he hadn’t. If he’d ever met a woman more exasperating than Rosaleen no-name, he never would have forgotten her.
“I didn’t bundle you into this inn in that heavy cloak for no reason at all, Rosaleen. If any of those men downstairs hear that I’m keeping a beautiful maiden in my room, I’ll end up having to kill half of them just to keep your precious virtue intact. I can’t take the chance of letting anyone see you, not even a maid. You understand that, do you not?”
A chill crept up Rosaleen’s spine. She hadn’t been able to make out much from the depths of the dark cloak Hugh Caldwell had made her wear into the inn, but she’d seen enough to know that the men patronizing the tavern were exactly the same sort who had accosted her two nights before.
“I understand,” she replied meekly.
“Good. Now take off your clothes and let me put this ointment on.”
Despite her weariness, Rosaleen hadn’t lost any of her fight.
“I’ll not, you lecher! You’re only doing this to take advantage of me!”
That was it. Hugh had had enough.
“If I’d wanted to take advantage of you, sweet, I would have done so last night when you were begging me to give you pleasure!”
Rosaleen gasped. “I never…I never did such a thing! You filthy beast!”
“Rosaleen,” he said in a low voice, advancing on her again, “I am tired, and I am hungry, and I want to go below stairs and have a welcome cup of ale, but most of all, my fine lady, I am past weary of being called every base name under God’s sun. Unless you want me to undress you myself you will remove…your…clothes. Now!”
His roar seemed to shake the whole room, and Rosaleen knew that she had pushed him too far. She had only seen such a look of fury on one other man’s face, and the last time she had defied her uncle he had taken a whip and beaten her. It was that memory that defeated her, and she bowed her head. With shaking fingers she began to unlace her surcot.
Damn, he was in a foul mood!
Hugh hefted his third tankard of ale and wondered what devils beset him so that he felt more sharply than ever the need to ease the bitterness that was his constant companion. If someone didn’t give him a good reason to release his fury soon he would have to seek out a fight himself, and that was always a nuisance.
He set the tankard down and rubbed a hand over his weary eyes.
Damn her! Damn her! It was that wretched female’s fault, every bit of it, and he only hoped she was as miserable as he was. God’s teeth, he was beginning to hate women, the fickle, useless shrews. There was only one thing they were good for, and the particular female he was stuck with wasn’t even any good for that.
Damn her…Rosaleen. He was miserable. He didn’t want to think of her, didn’t even want to think her name. He had lost his temper, he’d shouted at her, and the fight had gone out of her as though he’d actually struck her a blow. She’d started removing her clothing with trembling obedience, sickening Hugh with the realization of what he’d done and enraging him anew at the bastard who had abused her so badly. He’d made her stop when she’d gotten to her chemise, and then, feeling as great a bastard as her uncle, he’d carefully put the salve on without exposing her skin to his sight. She’d slid into the bed without a word after that, and when he had later taken her a tray of food, she had still refused to speak to him. He’d come downstairs feeling like nothing better than a great, hulking bully and had every intention of drinking himself into oblivion and then soothing his nerves with a good, vigorous fight.
His sharp eyes roamed the crowded tavern with acute skill, rapidly picking out the potential opponents to be had. Briefly, his eyes rested upon the full-figured serving girl who had earlier made him an offer he almost hadn’t refused. She caught his gaze and winked at him, letting him know that the offer was still open, and Hugh eyed her prospectively. She wasn’t a beauty by any stretch of the imagination, but she had a fine body. Her breasts were lovely, Hugh knew, for she had waylaid him in the shadows of the stairwell and displayed them quite prettily. They were made for a man to enjoy, just as the rest of her was, and Hugh was highly tempted.
Yes, indeed. Highly tempted.
And he needed something to take his mind off the morrow, for tomorrow he would finally see Hugo. After ten years…
Hugo.
He shut his eyes and felt himself plunging headlong into hell.
The next moment he shot off his stool and approached the biggest man in the room.
