“Nay, that is where you are so stupid, Fitz Hugh,” she said with contempt. “My worth is well known and makes your Judas fee insignificant. Clydon earns four times as much in just one year. Your friend Rothwell knows it, even if you do not. Well he will laugh at how little he had to pay to steal a fortune and the power behind it.”
For that she got a light push on her shoulder that sent her stumbling backwards into the tent. “Five minutes you have to dress yourself ere this tent comes down. In ten we ride out.”
That was all he said, or rather shouted in at her. No comment on whatshehad said, just change before the tent was dismantled. He really was a loutish bear, in size as well as intelligence.Jesú, he could ask for anything and she would give it, just to get out of this fix. His bargaining power was unbelievable, because she was at present in his possession. But did he see that? Nay, all he saw was the five hundred marks he would be earning, and unfortunately, that was the one thing she could not offer him, thanks to her father having emptied their coffers for King Richard’s Crusade.
Chapter Twelve
The march that day seemed longer than usual to Ranulf, though actually they made good progress considering the slow pace they kept to accommodate Rothwell’s men, none of whom had been supplied with horses, and the supply carts. Ranulf’s own thirty men, who had been with him now for four years, some longer, had mounts he had bargained for long ago, not the best or the youngest in horseflesh, and not nearly as expensive as the destriers he had supplied for Searle and Eric when they were knighted, but adequate to their needs. The thirty horses had not come cheap; had cost him four months’ service to a northern horse breeder beset by Scottish reivers, but having his men all mounted made the difference in getting certain jobs where speed was a necessity.
Usually, the time in the saddle sped by quickly for Ranulf, spent in planning the current job or even the next one, or on thoughts of the future when he would finally achieve his goal and have his own keep, rich fields to support it, his own villeins to care for. He had learned where he could about farming and animal husbandry, and about baronial court laws, for he had not received a proper education.
He had spent the first nine years of his life with the village smith, the brutish man his grandfather had given his mother to wed when she claimed the lord’s grandson had been planted in her belly. She died the year after he was born, so the smith got no bargain, only a babe to raise who was no use to him until he could learn the craft. This was sooner than he was ready, which accounted for Ranulf’s overdeveloped muscles at a tender age.
Known to be the future lord’s bastard had made his lot harder, not easier, for the village youths shunned him, the smith resented him and worked him until he was ready to drop each night, and his father, a youth himself at six years and ten when Ranulf was born, cared not what happened to him. His lordly grandfather came around from time to time to check on his development but never offered a kind word or a hint of kinship, and his father was seen rarely, and only at a distance.
He did not even meet his father until the day he was told he was being sent to Montfort to become a knight, and that likely came about only because his father had been wed five years by then, yet had produced no legitimate child in all that time. He had another bastard, one he had already made his heir in case a true heir was never born, which had indeed come to pass, for his wife was barren and yet still lived. But Ranulf did not know that at the time. For many a year he had thought he was being groomed to inherit, which was why he never complained about the hardships of being trained by a man like Montfort, and why it had been such a bitter blow to him when he did learn his bastard brother would inherit all instead.
His education at Montfort was only in the use of arms, with a bare smattering of knightly courtesies thrown in, for Lord Montfort was nowise a chivalrous knight himself. But Ranulfwasknighted, had in fact earned his spurs on the battlefield when he was only six years and ten, during one of Montfort’s petty wars. That he stayed on to serve Montfort for another year was only because Walter, a year older than Ranulf, had to wait that extra year before he was knighted, too, and they had already vowed to seek their fortunes together.
If his manner bespoke his baseborn heritage, assheclaimed, it was partly a result of his particular “education,” but partly deliberate, too, his dislike and distrust of ladies in general coloring his attitude toward any he must deal with. And it was his dealings so far with the Lady of Clydon that made this day drag out, for instead of pleasant thoughts of the future to occupy him as he rode along, he was plagued by anger, bewilderment, and horror over the events of the morning, or, more specifically, over what he had felt when he saw the lady up on that horse.
She in no way looked like a lady with that cloud of raven locks flowing down her back and over her shoulders, whipping about her hips. The too short shift had become shorter still, revealing legs that should have been spindly on a woman so narrow of build, yet were too shapely by half, and longer than he would have imagined them to be. Or was it that he saw somuchof them?
She sat the horse with shoulders thrown back, head high, with a skill no doubt learned from the cradle, and while she galloped across the camp, she had appeared beautiful somehow, when he knew very well she was not; but more bewildering than that, she had aroused his lust.
’Twas no doubt because he had seen that breast of hers. No, that in itself had not done it. He had seen too many breasts for one to fire his blood just because it happened to be staring him in the face. And yet that single moon-white globe of herswasdifferent. ’Twas barely a handful, though quite perfect in shape, without the slightest droop to it, as was common with larger breasts. But it was the rose nipple that made it unique, so large for such a small shape, and so sensitive! His mouth had gone dry when he saw it pucker as it was scraped by the cloth. After that, to see her with her legs spread wide in the saddle was enough to inflame his senses to lust.
And yet he still could not understand why, when she was everything he did not like, and he was horrified that it had happened at all.
He stole glances at her all day where she sat in the supply cart, just to make sure that, since she was completely clothed, there was nothing about her that was desirous, and there was not. Covered from head to toe, she was the lady again, prim and stiff, wrapped up in haughty pride, and shooting venom at him whenever their eyes should meet.
And that was another thing that aggravated his fury. Why had he not been able to intimidate the tiny shrew into giving him no trouble? He had certainly given it his best effort. Grown men quivered like jelly when he turned his wrath on them, yet not her. She threw insults at him whilst she was within his reach. No one,no one, had ever dared such a thing before.
“Do we stop at the abbey again, Ranulf?” Walter said as he rode up next to him. “’Tis just ahead.”
“Nay, not with the little general among us.”
“The little—oho. Her. But she can be left in the camp whilst we—”
“And let her get to another horse with no one to stop her next time? Nay, I am not letting her far from my sight or hearing, though the latter is like to drive me crazy.”
Walter chuckled, recalling what he had overheard before Ranulf had sent the lady back into the tent. “She does have a forceful way with words.”
“You heard only a small sampling.”
“Know you, then, what she meant about Rothwell stealing a fortune?”
“She claims he has no right to her, that he is not nor ever was her betrothed.”
“Did you not have that doubt yourself from Rothwell’s craftiness?”
“It matters not,” Ranulf replied stubbornly. “We are not being paid to discern who has what rights.”
“But—God’s wounds, Ranulf! Do you not realize what that means? If the old man has no true claim to her, why give her to him?youhave her. Why not keep her yourself?”
“Bite your tongue!” Ranulf snarled, horrified. “I want no lady to wife, least of allthatone.”
“Not even for Clydon?”
