Lady Of The Knight

“With ye a-splashing and grunting like a hog in a mud wallow?”

Andrew pursed his lips. “I marvel at your eloquent description of myself, dear Rosie. Have you been acquainted with many hogs in your short lifetime?” Her unappealing appraisal stung his vanity.

She had the gall to giggle again. “One or two, my lord, but methinks ye are the best of the lot.”

He fumed in the luxurious sanctuary of his gilded bed. “I give you thanks for your kind words,” he growled.

“How old are ye, my lord, if ye do not mind me asking?”

Injury to insult! “Eight and thirty years since this Shrovetide.” He laid down amid his flock of feathered pillows and pouted.

“Ah!” The chit was mercifully silent for a moment, then she said, “Ye should not let those minions of yours call ye an old man, Sir Andrew, for ye have a good strong body that gives the lie to your years.”

A ridiculous warmth flooded Andrew. He grinned in the darkness. What an intelligent girl he had acquired! Rosie obviously possessed an innate sense of good taste.

He cleared his throat. “Ladies should not observe a gentleman when he disrobes, Rosie.”

She snorted. “Haint a lady—yet! Good night, my lord.”

Andrew blew her a kiss. “Good night, sweet Rosie,” he whispered.

Despite his fatigue, he discovered that he could not sleep. Rosie’s even breathing told him that she had at last slipped into the healing grace of slumber. He laced his fingers behind his head and stared into the blackness of his silk-swathed ceiling.

Rosie danced through his thoughts like a maddening sprite. In his imagination, he heard her smoky voice and her sudden silvery laughter. Since he could not banish her from his mind, he turned his powers of concentration fully upon his latest acquisition.

It was already evident that she had teased a new vigor in his body. He sighed. Too evident. He would have to watch himself in the coming days if he was going to have her full cooperation. Any dolt could tell that she had been ill-used by men in her past. He swore to himself that he would try to make her future much more pleasant, even if it meant denying himself the pleasure that was his by right of ownership.

Andrew rolled onto his stomach and punched his pillows into a mound. Rosie had surprised him with her quick wit. True, she was entirely uneducated, but her natural instincts proved to be razor-sharp. He could tell that she would be an apt pupil. His hopes rose. It was not the money, but his pride that was at stake. He chuckled to himself when he imagined how Brandon would writhe when Andrew unveiled his little bit of mummery at the king’s banquet. Let the young cockerel sweat out the consequences of his rash gamble for a few days. Then, when he had learned his lesson, Andrew would return his losses to him.

Then there was Rosie. Andrew curled on his side. Was she really only a gleaning from the gutter? His observation differed. There was something about her that hinted of better blood—something familiar that he couldn’t quite recognize. Her face was too fine and delicate to be that bred from a mere peasant. Her complexion, kissed by the sun, reminded him of the petals of a flower. And her hair!

Andrew threw off his sheet, swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up. He fumbled for the tinderbox on his bedside table and after a few moments, lit his candle. Jeremy had not yet returned. Wastrel!

Holding the candle aloft, he crept around the foot of the great bed. The light fell upon Rosie. Her hair cascaded over the white pillowcase in a tumble of sun-kissed curls. Andrew knelt and touched the nearest one. Pure silk under his fingers. His loins stiffened and grew hot. He cursed himself for his weakness but did not move.

He continued to stroke the soft curl as he imagined all the delicious possibilities that making love with Rosie would present. Her veil of hair would clothe him as it enticed him. He longed to bury his face in her fragrant tresses. To bind himself with them. To taste their strands, to die—

The tent flap opened and Jeremy stumbled inside with a whispered oath. His load of cleaned supper plate clattered to the floor. Andrew stood up quickly and blew out the candle before the squire got a good look at his master’s rejuvenated body.

“Silence, churl!” he whispered to his tipsy squire. “I have only just now soothed her to sleep.”

Jeremy giggled like a wench. “And was she easy to leap upon, my lord? Did you have much good cheer?”

“I’ll leap upon you, you quirt, if you do not stop that damnable bleating, and I warrant you, the experience will bring you no cheer at all. Get you to bed!” He pointed to the pallet by the entrance.

Jeremy half sat, half fell onto it. “Your pardon, my lord,” he mumbled as he pulled off his jerkin.

Andrew climbed back into his own bed. “Granted, but not a word to the young lady on the morrow or you will rue it forty days, I promise you.”

“Aye, my lord,” Jeremy yawned. He lay down still half-dressed. “I am right glad that she pleased you.” He ended with a soft snore.

Andrew shook his head at the general folly of youth. “That she does,” he whispered to himself. “She pleases me well.”

Tuesday, June 12

Angry voices pulled Rosie from her slumber. From habit, she curled tight into a ball and pretended that she still slept even though she was now fully awake. Then she realized that the voices did not belong to her foster parents, nor was she shivering under the eaves of their cottage in Stoke Poges. A white sheet smelling faintly of lavender covered her and the morning’s sun bathed the interior of Sir Andrew’s tent with a soft glow.

“Surely ye have done with her by now, my lord. Tis near the dinner hour,” Quince whined on the other side of the canvas wall.

Rosie shivered despite the warmth of her bedding. She pulled her sheet up to her chin.

Sir Andrew chuckled. “By my troth, I have barely begun taking my pleasure with Mistress Rosie, and you said to take all the time I wanted.”

Quince stammered, “B-but another gentleman has already paid me a pretty penny for her. He waits for the wench now.”

Rosie chewed on her thumbnail. She couldn’t go back to Quince. She had never done much praying before, but now her lips framed a silent plea to heaven for deliverance.

“That other gentleman’s name had better not be Cavendish or Stafford,” Sir Andrew remarked in a dark tone.

“Nay.” Quince’s whine increased. “Tis a very insistent lord named Sir Gareth Hogsworthy, and methinks his patience is shorter than gunpowder.”

Rosie slid deeper under her covers. She remembered the man from last night because he reminded her of her foster father. She instinctively knew what sort of a beast Sir Gareth would be. Heaven help the woman who fell within his sadistic grasp.

“And what did Sir Gareth pay you for the attentions of the fair damsel?” Sir Andrew inquired. Danger lurked in his voice.

Quince hesitated. Rosie guessed that the bawdmaster was calculating a greater profit. She wanted to cry out a warning to Sir Andrew, but her sense of self-preservation silenced her.

“Twenty gold ryals, my lord,” Quince finally replied.

Ten times Quince’s highest price! Sir Andrew would never pay it. Rosie moaned into her pillow. Her sweet holiday from reality was over.

Then she heard someone swear softly inside the tent. She opened her eyes and peeked over the covers. Jeremy stood with his back to her while he listened at the closed entrance. He held a naked sword in one hand. By his stance, Rosie realized that the boy knew how to use the weapon.

“The devil take you, master of flesh!” Sir Andrew raised his voice.

Rosie cringed. She pushed back her covers and searched for another way out of the tent. They would have to catch her before any man could have his cruel way with her.

“Jeremy!” Sir Andrew bellowed. “Fetch my purse!”

The squire turned around and saw Rosie. She froze, barely daring to breathe. Jeremy unlocked a brass-bound trunk and lifted out a brown leather pouch. From its shape and size, Rosie guessed it contained a fortune.

The boy curled his lips at her. “You must have pleased my lord past all remembrance, wench,” he whispered with a rough edge to his voice. “Sir Andrew has never spent so much money on a woman before except his wife.” With that, he batted the flap aside and strode out.

Rosie didn’t know whether she felt flattered, appalled—or hurt. Sir Andrew hadn’t mentioned anything about having a wife. Rosie had assumed he was a bachelor. She should have known better. What a deceitful devil he was! Of course a rich and handsome lord like Sir Andrew would be married, and he probably had a castle filled with children as well. She cursed her naiveté, then cursed herself even more for caring. What was he to her but a slim respite from the hell of her life? What was she to him but a whore with whom he would play an outlandish jest upon the king? Why did she care?

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