His face hardened into the severe lines she was used to seeing. “Why not?” They softened when she kissed one of her fingertips and touched it to his lip.
“If I do, I won’t stop at one, and the next thing you know, it will be Gavin and Cinnia come to find me and discovering me naked in your lap.”
Ballard groaned and tilted his head back against the chair. He stared at the ceiling for a moment. “What man wouldn’t tent his breeches on hearing a woman say she’d happily strip naked for him after a few kisses?”
Louvaen shrugged. “I only speak the truth.”
“And that forthright manner is its own great allure.” He arched an eyebrow. “You’ll dream of me as you sleep in your sister’s virginal bed?”
“No,” she teased. “Dreaming of you will give me no peace; I need my rest in preparation for tomorrow night. I’ve been promised I won’t sleep then, so I best do it now.” She offered him a short bow. “I’m holding you to that promise, de Sauveterre.” She winked and strode out of the room, his low laughter following her as she closed the door behind her.
She stopped at her chamber to gather her night rail and shooed Gavin away from Cinnia’s door. He’d been as good as his word and not crossed the threshold. By the time she crawled into Cinnia’s bed and wished her sister goodnight, the effects of Ambrose’s potion had worn off, and she yawned as hard as Cinnia had earlier. Outside, snow flurries beat against the paned windows like butterfly wings. Louvaen watched their chaotic dances, Cinnia already asleep and curled warm against her back. A whisper of sound drifted in from the other side of the door. A heavy step, a pause, and then the steps moved on. She recognized the tread and sighed. Morning couldn’t come soon enough.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“So you live another day.” Isabeau’s gaze remained on her needle as she embroidered by the window. Sunlight spilled through the glass, outlining her elegant profile and the swell of her belly in a golden corona. Two of her women sat nearby, bent to their needlework as if the discourse between their lord and lady didn’t interest them.
Ballard knew better. Expecting a raging diatribe, death threats and copious tears, he stood just inside the solar, wary of his wife’s unnerving calm. “Are you well, my lady?”
A smile, sharp as a knife’s edge, curved her mouth. “Well as can be with this parasite tumbling about inside me.” He flinched and her smile widened. She might not be looking at him directly, but she watched him. “You have foresworn our bargain, Margrave.”
He came to stand near her chair, admiring the way the sun gilded her hair. Her beauty didn’t move him—had never moved him—though he understood why others had been beguiled by it. He did pity her. Bound to one man, pursued by and lied to by another, she’d been exploited, manipulated and extorted for the one thing of value greater than any single person: land. She hated him, and with reason, but she’d kept to their bargain, believing she’d have her freedom and her lover. He’d robbed her of the second.
“I’m sorry, Isabeau. He left me no choice.”
The needle paused in its breaching. Isabeau turned on her stool and met his gaze. He almost recoiled. Even in battle, when his enemies fought him across fields made muddy with blood, he’d never beheld such rancor. “Don’t say my name. My mother gave me my name, and you foul it by speaking it.” She resumed her stitching; only now her hand shook, belying her flat tone. “I prayed Cederic would be the one to cross the bridge at Ketach Tor.”
“I know you did.”
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I prayed he would split you open and spill your innards out for the king to see; that he’d feed them to the pigs afterwards. I prayed he would take your head for good measure and present it to me as a wedding gift.” Her women hunched on their stools and turned their faces away. Isabeau paused in her needlework once more, and this time when she stared at him, her blue eyes had emptied of all emotion. That emptiness spun a cold spot inside him that settled at the base of his spine. “I think I would have kissed you then.”
Ballard looked past his wife to the green pastures beyond her window. Had Cederic been a better fighter, the gods might have answered her prayers. Instead, they’d favored him over his challenger that day, and Ballard had walked away from the field of combat doused in the blood that had fountained from the fatal wound he’d hacked into Cederic’s neck. He’d been more relieved than triumphant. As Isabeau said, he lived another day, and the contested properties which had brought so much strife to his household remained his.
“What now?” She sounded tired, defeated.
He sighed. “Granthing died without an heir. His demesne borders mine. The king has granted all Granthing lands to me in the interest of securing kingdom borders. As Margrave, I’m responsible for defending them anyway.”
Her sharp bark of laughter made her grasp her belly and bend over the embroidery frame. She held up a hand to hold him off when he stepped closer. Perspiration beaded her brow and upper lip as she straightened. Her mouth turned up in a sneer. “Always the land for you. You imprisoned me for it, killed my lover for it. Is there anything you won’t do for a parcel of dirt?”
If he were to answer honestly, he’d say no. Land was power. Possessing it raised soldiers to knights, knights to noblemen, and in some cases noblemen to kings. Isabeau had no interest in the ambitions of the family into which she’d married, no love for her husband or the heir she carried. Their future meant nothing to her. As such, Ballard didn’t answer her question directly. “I won’t keep you at Ketach Tor beyond the birth of the child if that’s your wish. I’ve not foresworn all of our bargain, my lady. You are still free to live elsewhere. Any place you choose, and I’ll support you. Neither of us can remarry, but should you find another to love, I won’t begrudge him your favors.”
Isabeau rose slowly from her seat and closed the distance between them. Even heavily pregnant, with the babe almost resting on her knees, she moved with a grace to be envied. “But you’d begrudge this future paramour my lands.”
“My lands,” he corrected. “They ceased to be yours when you married me. And I will deny any child you may bear of a later union.” He motioned to her gravid shape. “Ketach Tor belongs to this child and only this child.”
Sunlight winked off metal as Isabeau’s hand shot up before arcing toward Ballard’s face. Already leery of her willingness to come so close, he dodged the sharp scissors she held, almost losing an eye to her aim. Isabeau missed his face but found her mark in his shoulder. Steel points sank deep into muscle, and Ballard hissed as hot pain bolted down his arm to his fingers. He pushed her away from him. Her handmaidens screamed, echoing Isabeau’s shrieks as the unnatural calm fractured beneath her rage.
“I wish you were dead!” she shouted and bodily launched herself at him.
Scissors still buried in his shoulder, Ballard caught her with his uninjured arm and clenched his jaw when she sank her teeth into his bicep. He was hamstrung, unable to defend himself for fear of hurting the baby. She bit him hard enough to draw blood, letting go only when her women pulled her off him.
Isabeau sank to her knees, panting, face flushed red, mouth smeared with Ballard’s blood. “Gods, I hate you.” She gasped, clutched her belly and clawed at one of her women. The rosy color drained from her skin, leaving her ashen.
Alarmed, Ballard crouched in front of her. “Isabeau?”
“Get away from me,” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Baby. Hurts.”
Ballard lurched to his feet. “Get Magda and find the midwife,” he ordered the handmaidens. They stared at him, openmouthed and unmoving. “Now!” he bellowed.
