Lady At Arms (22 page)

The accuracy of her prediction, coupled with his imminent loss of her, had shaken Ranulf.

Prior to his dismissal, Henry had slyly suggested he reconsider his decision to offer for Lizanne and informed him a choice would be made soon if no offer was forthcoming.

Had the man not been king, Ranulf would have throttled him, but he had withdrawn with his head still firmly in place.

Of a sudden, Lizanne rolled onto her back and threw an arm across his chest. She groaned and turned her head to peer at him through narrowed eyelids. “Oh, ’tis you.”

“Did you expect Philip Charwyck?”

“What?” She blinked, then her eyes widened. “Geoff told you.”

“Naturally.”

“Naturally.” She raked a hand through her rumpled hair and leveraged up to sitting.

“Tell me of your broken betrothal to Charwyck,” Ranulf said.

Disbelief rose upon her face. “’Tis none of your concern.”

“You are wrong.” Amazed at the firm grip he maintained on his composure, he sat up. “The king does intend to see you wed, Lizanne, and this Charwyck is among the candidates.”

She caught her breath.

“Since you are under my protection, I would know.”

Fear, anger, uncertainty, disgust, and a flurry of other emotions tripped across her features before she bowed her head and stared at the hands she had turned into fists.

Overwhelmed by the longing to embrace her and offer solace, Ranulf crooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted it.

She met his gaze, asked, “And were you considered a candidate as well?”

He was surprised by her directness. “Aye, but I have declined.”

Abruptly, she drew back, dropped her feet to the floor, and crossed to a window.

Ranulf followed. “Are you disappointed?”

She swung around to face him where he had halted an arm’s reach away. “Think you I would want to marry you?” she demanded, tears in her eyes. “That I would want to marry any man? Lest you do not yet understand who I am, I will tell you—I do not like men. They are the pestilence of the earth.”

He took a step nearer. “What of your brother? You hate him as well?”

“Nay! Gilbert is different—”

“Different from other men? How can that be?”

“He is my brother. And a good man.”

“Ah.” Ranulf slowly nodded. “And Geoff?”

Her eyes widened. “He…he is…”

“What of Roland? You do not hate him either.”

“They are boys! They have not yet learned the treachery of men.”

Ranulf stepped nearer. “And treachery… Is it an exclusive trait of men? What of women, Lizanne?” He was remembering the one to whom he had been wed for five miserable years. “Methinks the fairer sex can be far more treacherous than men.”

She was breathing hard now. “I do not speak of matters of the heart but of pillaging and murder and…ravishment.” She flinched, pressed a hand to her temple.

Staring into her pain-drawn features, likely as much a result of the events of this day as the wine, Ranulf shuffled through the pieces of Lizanne’s character, analyzed them, and attempted a fit that would give him the insight that constantly eluded him.

And then came realization. Focusing again on her face, he saw fear had risen there. “Some man tried to steal your virtue.” Or had stolen it. “That is what this is all about, is it not?”

Her eyes dilated, the muscles of her jaw contracted, blood flushed her skin.

“Who was it?” he asked. “Charwyck?”

“Philip?” she cried. “He is far more honorable than the one who tried to ravish me. He is the one I wanted more than anything to wed!”

Ranulf winced. She had loved Charwyck—at least, thought herself in love with him. “Why did you not wed him?”

She raised her chin higher. “Believing I had lost my virtue, he determined I was no longer worthy to be his wife.”

Ranulf ground his teeth. Philip Charwyck was every bit the miscreant he appeared to be. Though he longed to put his arms around Lizanne, he drew no nearer, certain his touch would not be welcome. “If ’twas not Charwyck, then who, Lizanne?”

She drew a deep breath. “’Twas you—Ranulf Wardieu.”

Head pounding, throbbing, releasing arrows against the backs of her eyes, Lizanne struggled to keep from squeezing her lids closed as she watched Ranulf transform from inquisitor to the accused. But unlike Philip when he had learned of her identity, the man before her did not startle or stumble back.

Anger drained from his face and was replaced by disbelief, bafflement, and, slowly, understanding. “It explains much,” he murmured, staring at her out of eyes that did not seem to see her—at least, not here and now. “My imprisonment. Your hatred. Your shame at responding to my touch.”

Was that an admission? It seemed so and yet not. “Do you know what you have wrought?” she asked past the tears in her throat. “No matter who you have made yourself into these past years, you destroyed everything dear to me—my father, Philip, Gilbert… Aye, Gilbert! You might as well have killed my brother when you attacked our camp, for he is lost to me and everyone else.”

Another arrow struck the inside of her left temple, and she pressed a hand to it. “Now will you deny it was of your doing?”

His gaze having risen back to the surface of her, he said almost wearily, “I am not in the habit of admitting to crimes for which I am not responsible, Lizanne. And, I vow, I am not the one who should pay the price for that which you lay—nay,
throw
—at my feet. So terrible a thing I could never do.”

Lizanne did not think twice about the impulse that struck her. Indeed, she did not even think once. She heard the crack of flesh on flesh, felt the sting across her palm, saw the bright color that marked his face.

“’Twas you!” she hissed.

His jaw convulsed. “It was another.”

She laughed bitterly. “I am not surprised you deny it, for it cannot have sat well with a warrior such as you to be bested by a woman.”

“Again, I know not of what you speak, Lizanne.”

“This!” She swept up her right hand, this time to show, not strike. “You wanted to know about this.” She flexed the crooked thumb. “Foolish. I should have had it on the outside rather than the inside of my fist when I struck you. But I can hardly complain, for it achieved the same end and stopped you from taking what I would not give. Now do you remember?”

He shook his head. “Until I saw you at Lord Langdon’s, never had I laid eyes upon you.”

Trying to ignore the pain behind her eyes, she reached forward and grasped a handful of his hair. “There is no other with hair the color of new snow.” She moved her gaze to his eyes.
 
“Nor eyes so black they are but one color.” She dropped her hand and stepped back. “And your size is unmistakable. I have not erred.”

“Aye, you have,” he said sharply. “I am not this man you speak of.”

“You lie. You may not have the scar I was certain I had seen, but you are one and the same.”

Ranulf glowered. “Tell me about the scar.”

She put her lips together, raised her chin.

He stepped so near there was hardly the space of a hand between them. “You will tell me, Lizanne—”

She brought her knee up, but he sidestepped her attempt to unman him. And before she could try again, he swept her up into his arms.

“Put me down!”

Unmoved by her flailing, he carried her across the chamber and dropped her on the bed. When she scrambled to raise herself, he pushed her back and thrust his face near hers.

“The man who tried to violate you would not have been as patient I have been, Lizanne. He would not have stopped at kisses. He would not have slept on another pallet. He would have taken everything that first day and every day thereafter until there was naught left of you.”

Lizanne stared into his eyes. It was the same argument she’d had with herself over and over again, trying to reconcile
that
man with this one.

“And if I were that man, never would you desire me as you do,” he said softly and lowered his mouth to hers.

Lizanne pressed her lips together, squeezed her eyes closed, tried not to feel the warmth of lips that coaxed a response from her, struggled to focus her thoughts and senses elsewhere. However, they were not going anywhere without Ranulf.

Keen, unnerving sensations in the small of her back spread up and outward like a warm breeze, and though her mind protested, she began to relax, to feel what she was not meant to feel, to accept his kiss and give it back.

A moment later, his mouth lifted from hers.

She raised her lids and watched the lips that had battered her defenses take a bitter turn.

“Though you refuse to accept the truth of who I am and am not, Lizanne Balmaine,” he said, “your body knows.”

He straightened from the bed, turned, and strode to the door. “Think on it,” he said, then was gone.

She released the breath she had not realized she held. The last thing she wanted to do was think on it more, for it hurt too much to be at war with a heart adamantly resistant to the belief Ranulf was responsible for that horrible night.

“Later,” she whispered. “Much later.”

As Ranulf had expected she might, Lizanne pleaded illness and did not put in an appearance for the late meal. In her place sat Walter, his expression dour as, in a confidential tone, he related to Ranulf the information obtained about Charwyck.

Ranulf leaned closer at the mention of Philip’s knight service to the king—rather, lack of it.

“He pays the shield tax to avoid military service,” Walter said.

“So he is a coward as well,” Ranulf murmured and looked to the subject of their discussion. Charwyck did not notice, engrossed as he was in staring at a curvaceous serving wench.

“It would appear so,” Walter said, “but I am also told he is not inexperienced. The first three years following knighthood he did fulfill his service. ’Tis just in recent years he has declined to do so.”

“What else?”

“Shortly after Philip broke the marriage contract with Lady Lizanne, he wed a landed widow, nearly doubling his family’s holdings.”

Ranulf lifted an eyebrow. “She is no longer living, I presume?”

Walter drew nearer his lord. “Two years ago, she died under suspicious circumstances. Sir Philip says she fell down the stairs and broke her neck, but ’tis gossiped her neck was broken prior to the fall.”

Ranulf reached for his wine goblet. “Do you think it merely lurid gossip?”

The vassal shook his head. “I fear ’tis likely true. The rumors of his cruelty abound such that there must be some substance to them.”

Raising the goblet to his mouth, Ranulf looked again at Sir Philip. As he swallowed a mouthful of the warm liquid, he met the icy blue of the other man’s stare over the goblet’s rim. Without breaking the contact, he took another drink and watched Charwyck’s lips slowly curl.

They understood each other, then. Excellent. Ranulf lowered the goblet and returned his gaze to Walter. “I will not allow Lady Lizanne to wed him.”

His vassal showed no surprise. “Then you will marry her yourself?”

Inwardly, Ranulf sighed. He had delivered Lizanne unto this, and he would deliver her out of it. Whether or not she liked it, she would be his. “Aye, I will offer for her.”

Almost shockingly, Walter grinned. “Though the woman bedevils you, my lord, methinks you will not soon tire of the novelty of her company.”

Ranulf frowned. “I gathered you did not care for her.”

“I did not, but I have watched her closely since we left Killian and think I may have misjudged her—though only because she wished to be misjudged.”

“Then what of your agreement to dislike one another?”

Walter drew back slightly. “Did she tell you that?”

“She made it clear you had reached some sort of understanding.”

After a long moment, Walter chuckled. “I suppose we did reach an agreement, though ’twas certainly not spoken.”

“Ranulf,” the king broke into their conversation.

“Your Majesty?”

Henry leaned toward him. “I have made my choice, and a fine one at that.”

Knowing with dread certainty that Henry spoke of the man who would be Lizanne’s husband, Ranulf stiffened and felt a similar tension emanate from Walter. “I would speak to you on that, my liege. I have reconsidered and would offer to wed Lady Lizanne myself.”

Henry looked surprised, then regretful. “I fear ’tis too late. I have approached Charwyck, and he has agreed to take her to wife. Did you know the Balmaine and Charwyck lands adjoin?”

Struggling to keep from turning his hands into fists, Ranulf stared at the king.

“Curious thing,” Henry continued, “but I have learned Lady Lizanne was once betrothed to the man.” His eyes drifted upward as if he searched for the details.

“I would ask that you reconsider,” Ranulf said low.

The king raised his goblet and drained the contents. “There is naught to reconsider. The decision stands.”

Patience,
Ranulf silently counseled, nearly overwhelmed by the desire to strike out. Determinedly, he redirected that urge to Lizanne’s newly betrothed. He would personally deal with the man.

Eleanor leaned forward and, smiling beautifully, placed a hand on her husband’s arm. “Mayhap you should allow Lady Lizanne to choose for herself,” she suggested. “After all, ‘twould seem either man would be a suitable match.”

Surprisingly, Henry was a long time considering the suggestion. “Aye,” he finally said, “Lady Lizanne will herself decide on the morrow.”

 
He favored Eleanor with a lazy smile. “’Twill make for an interesting diversion, hmm?” He laughed. “Though I do not know that she will be any more agreeable than she was the last time.”

Ranulf was not pleased, but there was nothing else to be said, for the king shoved to his feet and signaled an end to the meal.

As Ranulf pushed his chair back, he swept his gaze over the hall and located Philip Charwyck among the throng of nobles eager to depart. Then he headed toward the man, and only Walter, who sprang in front of him and barred his way, stopped him.

“My lord,” his vassal entreated, “do not.”

“You are too presumptuous,” Ranulf growled and reached to set the smaller man aside.