He nodded very seriously. “I intended to apologize before we entered the castle.”
“You were going to apologize?” The very sweetness of the gesture made her light-headed. “Why out here?”
He gave her his endearing half-smile. “So no one would see me?” he admitted.
She punched him in the ribs and came away with bruised knuckles. “Oh! Help me get my hair out,” she snapped, shaking her wounded hand.
His clever fingers went to work, and in seconds she was free. “Thank you,” she said, rolling away from him. She came to her feet and brushed the grass from her boy’s braies. “You can get up now,” she told him.
He pushed himself to his knees and reached for her. “Give me your hand,” he said.
“My lord, you don’t have to do this!” She had to wonder if she wasn’t dreaming. The scenery was stunning. The petals of the flowers rippled under the breeze. The moat danced about the castle in sparkling, little waves. And the most notorious warrior in the borderlands was on his knees before her.
“Your hand, lady.”
With a sigh she stuck her hand out for him to take. Pleasure feathered up her spine as he stroked her palm and brought her reddened knuckles to his lips. “I am groveling,” he informed her as his mouth brushed her skin. “Perhaps you could still bring yourself to forgive me?” He darted her a pleading look from under his lashes.
The heat of his mouth reminded her of the scorching kisses they had shared the night he made his demands. “There isn’t a need to apologize,” she said breathlessly. “I brought it on myself. I was most deceitful, and I am sorry for the mistrust my lies had spawned.”
“Forgiven,” he said, cutting her off. “However, do you attempt anything so rash as worming your way inside an abbey again, you will answer for it.”
She regarded him closely. Was he angry or merely concerned? “Will you get up now? You’re going to snap the buckles on your knee-guards.”
“I’m not done yet. There is something else I need to ask you while I’m down here.”
“What?” The question came out on a breath of disbelief. Nay, surely he wasn’t going to . . .
“Will you wed me?”
She told herself the wind was rustling the stalks of wildflowers. “What did you say?”
“Lady, will you marry me?” The naked fire in his eyes matched the intensity of the question.
The sun gathered warmth on her shoulders, but still she couldn’t speak. Could this be the realization of her fantasies? Had a handsome warrior fallen helplessly in love with her? Did he want to cherish her always, give her children, gather her close on winter nights? “Why?” she asked in a thin, little voice.
He paused a moment. “Simon needs a mother” came his reasonable reply at last.
Some of her delirium dimmed. “Ah.”
“And you need a knight to challenge your stepfather.”
It was all so reasonable. She tugged her hand free and stalked a short distance away. Amidst a patch of tangle roses, she forced herself to forget her pique and think of the benefits.
He was right. She still required a champion. And Simon needed a mother—oh, how lovely it would be to claim him as her own! This was not some romantic fairy tale with a prince and a princess. He was the Slayer, for mercy’s sake! Tying her name to his meant accepting the darkness that hovered around him and rose to consume him at unexpected moments. Could she live with that?
“Why not just demand that I be your mistress?” she asked with her back still turned. She needed more time to think.
He remained on his knees. “Two reasons,” he said. “The first is that you deserve more.”
She felt herself wavering toward acceptance.
“Secondly, I would like . . . a more permanent arrangement. I have a son to think of and no time for courting.”
A thorn of disappointment pricked her heart. She hoped he would admit to harboring a tendresse for her. After all, he’d once admitted that he liked her. Wasn’t love just a step above like?
She sternly put a stop to her runaway thoughts. Love was a fickle emotion. She’d fancied herself in love with Alec once, and those feelings had done naught but die a slow, frustrating death.
Nay, Christian was right. It was better to marry for the sound reasons he’d supplied.
As for his bleak reputation, she would let it work for her own ends. The Slayer would destroy her stepfather as only a ruthless warlord could. Following that, she could only pray that his sense of right and wrong would reemerge, bringing a balance of humors to his inner darkness.
With her decision made, she pivoted and came to stand before him. “Very well,” she said, ready to set a seal on the bargain. “I agree to marry you.”
His eyes blazed with triumph. He grabbed her wrists and tugged her down until she dropped to her knees before him. “You will never regret it,” he vowed, cupping her face.
She wanted badly to believe him. She was keenly aware of the leashed strength in his fingertips against her delicate skull. She shuddered with mixed ecstasy and dread as he pulled her close to claim her with a kiss.
Five days later Clarise descended the tower stairs with the feeling that moths were eating holes in her belly.
It was natural for any bride to feel nervous. Yet it wasn’t solely the prospect of marriage to a warlord that worried her; it was the knowledge that Ferguson had come to the wedding as planned. He had pitched his tents outside the walls in the very meadow where Christian had proposed to her. He had come believing that an alliance was about to be forged. He had no idea that the Slayer intended to kill him during a joust tomorrow.
It was Christian’s notion, drawn from the game Ferguson had invented when he sent her mother pounding at the gates of Glenmyre. Clarise had doubts that Ferguson would accept the offer: he’d wanted the Slayer dead, after all. But apparently the lure of having the Slayer for an ally was even more tantalizing than having him dead. The promise of a wedding and a tourney had lured the Scot to Helmesly. Clearly he was all too eager to expand his power.
Perhaps if Clarise knew more details about the Scot’s ultimate demise, she could focus on her marriage. But Christian had been stubbornly silent on the subject. “Am I not the warrior?” he’d pointed out one night. “Are you not the maid? You’ve carried the burden of your family’s plight long enough, Clarise. Leave the rest to me.” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Christian; rather, it was Ferguson whom she did not trust.
“Do you see any wrinkles in my gown, Nell?” she asked, trying to recall the wedding vows she’d committed to memory.
“Nay, milady,” assured the servant, descending the tower steps behind her.
“What about my hair? Is it staying up?”
“Ye look perfect, milady. Like a queen.”
Her gown had been cut from a cream-colored bolt of Normandy silk, procured from a silk merchant who’d come to Abbingdon. It clung to every curve of her body before streaming behind her in a shimmering cascade. Her hair was caught up in a tiara of pearls with a matching girdle slung low on her hips. She believed that she had never looked lovelier in her life. Would it make the mercenary speak the words of love she still foolishly wanted to hear?
Given the scents wafting up the tower stairs, the wedding feast would be one befitting a queen. Christian and his master-at-arms had gone hunting every day to procure the necessary fare. Clarise doubted she would manage to eat any of it. What if Ferguson had a plan of his own? What if his toxic powders found a way into the food?
Surely Christian would have taken measures to prevent that. She considered the man she was about to wed. It still came as a shock to think of herself as the Slayer’s bride. At the mere mention of his name, peasants still crossed themselves and fled. The tragedy at Wendesby would live with him forever.
She asked herself for the hundredth time if she was making the right decision. His behavior since the day of their proposal had given her no reason to change her mind. He’d treated her with abundant generosity and unfailing chivalry, assigning her a seamstress to provide her with a new trousseau. A perfume merchant arrived yesterday morning bearing an assortment of oils and perfumes. A tapestry weaver, hired to create five new tapestries for the castle, had requested her input on the size and color of each. Her groom gave her leisure to do all this while he planned the details of the wedding and tourney.