The Conqueror's Lady. Terri Brisbin

      Her back ached from being pressed against the hard surface of the wall all night, trying to keep her distance from the very large, very warm body in her bed. If he was troubled by what had occurred between them, his manner of falling immediately into the embrace of sleep and breathing deeply through the long night spoke not of it.

      Rubbing her eyes, she allowed a yawn to escape before dragging her body across the bed to its edge. Her cyrtei and syrce twisted around her legs and waist and Fayth tugged it down in place just as the door of the chamber opened, or was moved away from the frame. Fearing another encounter with her new husband, she was comforted when her maid entered instead. Within minutes, a tub and buckets of steaming water were brought into the room and set up in front of a fire in the hearth.

      In Emma’s care, her own worries fell away as her maid issued stern commands about placing the door back on its hinges and huffed about the chamber protecting Fayth’s privacy during her bath. Once satisfied that the door, jammed against the frame, would be an able barrier to anyone entering, she turned and faced Fayth. With a frown and grimace at finding her in her gown and barely a pause to acknowledge it, Emma efficiently lifted the outer tunic off, unlaced the long sleeves and loosened the cyrtel and finally the linen shift. Then she lifted all the remaining layers over Fayth’s head. Her maid’s unstifled gasp made her turn sharply at the object of Emma’s concern.

      There on her breast was a mark, a bruise of a sort marring her skin. She laid her fingers there, but there was no pain as she would have expected, but her skin felt heated.

      ‘Did he hurt you?’ Emma whispered, nodding at the mark as she busied herself shaking out Fayth’s clothing. ‘Did he, my lady?’

      First waves of embarrassment filled her. Then the realization that Emma thought Lord Giles had done this. The worst was when the truth struck her and Fayth knew that the passionate kiss Giles had placed there, the one when he had used his lips and tongue and even his teeth, had left such a mark. She felt the heat in her cheeks and her breasts even ached as she remembered the pleasure of it and even as she tried to find words to say to Emma.

      ‘He … I …’ she stuttered, not knowing whether to explain or not.

      ‘Hush, now, lady,’ Emma said. The old woman guided her to the waiting tub and helped her step inside. ‘The hot water will soothe you.’

      Fayth decided not to protest or to explain something so personal as this. Sinking into the bath, she could not meet Emma’s gaze. Inhaling the pleasant scent of the herbs and oil added to the water, Fayth tried to put her fears out of her mind for the moment and it would have worked if not for Emma’s whispered words.

      ‘How could he do something like this?’ The maid continued her work around the tub and continued her diatribe against their new lord as well, still in hushed tones. ‘I thought he had more sense than to mistreat an innocent.’

      ‘He does not believe me an innocent,’ she blurted out.

      ‘Not innocent, my lady? I would swear on my mother’s grave, may she rest in peace, that you are as pure as the day you were born.’ Emma, her nurse, then maid and now friend, too, would be one who knew it.

      ‘And this new lord would believe you not, Emma. He accused me of giving myself to Edmund and carrying his child.’

      Emma dropped the soapy washing cloth into the water and gasped. Stumbling back from the tub, she shook her head. Fayth could tell when shock gave way to anger, for Emma’s round face grew red and beads of sweat, not related to the task at hand, began to roll down her forehead and cheeks. Leaning back closer, she whispered once more to her, glancing first behind her as though to see if anyone had entered.

      ‘But surely, my lady, he discovered the truth? When he bedded you?’ Emma took Fayth’s hand from where it lay on the edge of the tub and stroked it gently. ‘Fear not, lady. I always keep your confidences.’

      Fayth’s resolve not to speak of such matters, even though Emma had held her counsel in the two years since Fayth’s mother’s death, dissolved then in the face of Emma’s kind-hearted concern and in knowing that Emma would carry her secrets, if she knew them, to the grave.

      ‘He did not bed me. He said that until he knows I am not carrying a child, he will not. And he did not believe me when I told him I have not given myself to anyone.’

      Spilling out the words brought a deep sense of sadness to her. As daughter and heiress to her father, her word had always been accepted, her honour never questioned. Sliding forward and wrapping her arms around her knees, she laid her face there and thought on it as Emma attended to her back and began washing her hair.

      ‘Hush now, lady. All will be well. At least he did not take you roughly or against your will,’ she offered as she lathered up the length of Fayth’s hair. But instead of soothing her troubled thoughts, her words added to them.

      ‘Emma, how can it be other than against my will? This man attacks my people, takes my lands and forces me to marriage. I do not want this and I suspect he does not want me either.’ Emma’s hands stilled and Fayth could swear the woman stifled a laugh.

      ‘I know he covets what I bring to him, Emma. I am no fool in that regard. But I want him no more than he wants me.’ Tears threatened then and her throat tightened as she thought on her reaction to his touch and to his kiss. ‘I cannot want him,’ she whispered.

      Emma did not press her for more and Fayth was glad of it. The fact that her body came to life under his touch shamed her and she did not wish to repeat such a weakness again. They accomplished the rest of her bath in silence and Fayth stood so that Emma could rinse her of the soap. Allowing the water to pour down over her, Fayth closed her eyes.

      The sound of his loud, angry voice preceded that of the door crashing against the wall by only moments.

      ‘I told you not to bar this door,’ he yelled, but then his voice dropped lower, much lower when he looked at her, ‘to me.’

       Chapter Five

      The sight of Lord Giles standing there, filled with anger, fist still raised and glaring at her gave Fayth pause. She did not dare move, for it was only his tall body that blocked those behind him. Fayth heard Emma’s indrawn breath behind her and, as she watched, the warrior’s gaze moved over her nakedness.

      Her skin tingled wherever his eyes looked—first her face and neck and then her breasts as she saw the glimmer of recognition as he noticed the mark there. Then his gaze slid down until he stared at her legs and the area between them. The tips of her breasts tightened under his bold, sexual stare and shock finally gave way to action. She covered herself as she could with her arms and hand while reaching for a drying cloth, one which Emma could not seem to find.

      Fayth turned her back to him, chancing even more of his anger, to grab the large cloth from Emma’s hand and to wrap it around herself. For some reason, her maid did not move to aid her and it took some moments for Fayth to accomplish. It was then that she heard Emma’s whispered words.

      ‘I do not think you need to worry about him wanting you, lady.’

      Fayth turned and faced her husband, whose expression had changed from anger to lust in those few moments. Now, his eyes burned hers with a heated stare. His hands fisted and released several times before he let them hang at his sides. Lord Giles wore his mail hauberk once more with his sword at his side, apparently ready for battle.

      Realising she still stood in the tub, Fayth leaned down to hold the edge while stepping out. Before she could manage, he warned off his men and strode across the chamber in a few steps. Lifting her from the water and holding her high against his chest, he carried her over to the side of the bed and placed her on her feet. As she thought to thank him, Fayth was horrified to realise that she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and was still holding him so.