Anne O'Brien - Conquering Knight, Captive Lady

Rosamund frowned. As the knight moved, she noticed he favoured his right leg, a slight limp. Probably acquired in a tavern brawl or a drunken disagreement over dice. He was nothing but a mercenary, a robber baron, and not a moment ago she had been dragged into his arms, held hard against his chest. Disgust filled her, not least at her reaction to him. She could not find this man attractive! Her intense annoyance coloured her next words when she saw that he was quite prepared to dismiss her like a servant and leave her standing there in the mud of her own bailey.

‘How dare you take what is mine! You’re nothing but an uncivilised lout!’

Which got his attention well enough. Emotion flashed across his face. With shocked fascination she saw the slash of colour along the high cheekbones as he looked down at his tormentor, a particularly cold stare. For a long moment he contemplated her in silence, allowing Rosamund the opportunity to chide herself. What a time to make so unwise an attack. Then, when the weight in her chest had grown to major proportions, he grinned and sketched a mocking bow, strangely at odds with the mud and grime. The smile was not friendly. His eyes and his words froze the marrow of her bones.

‘In the circumstances, lady, you should be praying that you are wrong in your estimation of my appearance and character. If I was an uncivilised lout, I would have designs on your person as well as your castle.’ He took a stride forward. To her dismay Rosamund took one in retreat, but Fitz Osbern did not halt. Instead he stepped intimidatingly close. Rosamund, disconcerted, found herself lifting a hand to smack it firmly in self-protection against his chest. And drew in a sharp breath.

It burned. She could feel the heat of him, as she had before, as it crept from that inadvertent touch of her spread fingers to engulf her whole body. And not merely a physical warmth. Her heart seemed to swell with it, filling her breast so that her breathing shortened. Her belly shivered with nerves. Every inch of her skin seemed suddenly to be conscious of his looming presence. He might not be touching her, but she felt the hot slide of his glance over her flesh. Aghast, Rosamund swallowed against the dryness in her throat. She could feel the flame of it in her cheeks, and cursed her pale complexion that mirrored every thought. Could think of nothing to say, could only stare at him wide-eyed as his heart beat steadily beneath her palm.

Then, to her relief, the knight stepped back.

‘I assure you, I have no designs on your person,’ he growled. The grin widened to show even teeth. Wolfishly, she considered. ‘As for yourself, lady, you are remarkably proud and haughty, considering that you are entirely at my mercy.’

Flushing again, vividly to the roots of her hair, Rosamund found her voice. ‘At your mercy? I am no such thing!’

‘No? I don’t suggest that you challenge me on that point.’ He looked her up and down as if about to say more, changed his mind. ‘Enough of this. I have things to do here, lady. We’ll discuss this … this little difficulty … over dinner at mid-day. If nothing else, we must arrange for your transportation elsewhere. So if you would be so good as to order the provision of hot food for my men with my steward, and for ourselves …’

Without a backward glance, Fitz Osbern strode off toward the stables, leaving her standing. My steward! Her clear brow furrowed into a scowl, her hands tightened into fists. She would have tapped her foot if her shoe had not been firmly anchored in the mud. Order the food! As if I were a servant at his beck and call! Stalking past her mother without a word, she climbed the stairs into the hall, head high, realising that she had no choice, that she would get nowhere with this situation until they faced each other again and hammered out the legalities. She refused to chase after him to demand his attention. So she would organise the meal. Present him with the documents of her legal ownership. And then force him to leave. Although how she would achieve such a conclusion she had no very clear idea. Whatever she had or had not learned about him in that short confrontation, he was not a man open to persuasion.

But that was not all she had learnt. And it was equally unacceptable. Rosamund found herself wiping her damp palm down her skirts. His touch still burned there.

Lady Petronilla remained standing at the foot of the staircase, a fascinated witness to the little scene, an avid spectator of a clash of wills that could not but fill her with anxieties for the future. She might have been unable to hear all the words spoken, except when Rosamund raised her voice beyond what was seemly to call the knight an uncivilised lout—perhaps not the best thing to do on first acquaintance—but the tone of the whole exchange had been abundantly clear. Sometimes Rose was too much her father’s daughter for everyone’s comfort. And now what? The Fitz Osbern men were quite incontrovertibly in control, occupying the gatehouse and the towers of the central court, their equipment stowed and their horses occupying the stables. Petronilla slid a glance over to where the elder of the two knights still stood where he had remained throughout, at his horse’s head, hands clasped on his sword belt as he watched the proceedings with an undisguised appreciation. Now, sensing her interest, he looked across at her, his smile gaining a rueful quality. For some reason his quiet confidence, his tolerant smile and the gleam in his eye as it met hers across the width of the bailey brought a warmth to her face. She felt his sympathy, his quick understanding of the uncomfortable position that she had been thrown into, and it irritated her beyond bearing. She felt an urge to wipe the smile from his face. Before common sense could step in, she stalked across to his side.

‘I don’t know what you found to be so amusing in that little interlude,’ she remarked with stern censure. Had she known it, the lift of her chin was very like that of her daughter. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’

‘What?’ The smile duly vanished, the knight’s rough brows snapped together. ‘What did I do?’

‘Nothing! That’s the thing!’

Like her daughter, she turned on her heel and left him to mull over the enigmatic words as he wished, whilst Lady Petronilla wondered at her response to the knight and her temerity at castigating him for no reason at all.

Rosamund paced in the Great Hall —her Great Hall—her thoughts in confusion. As if her arrival at Clifford on the previous day had not been bad enough, with all its shocking revelation. As if the decisions she had been forced to make had not taken all her courage. And now this débâcle—this monstrous turn of events. From the moment when she had at set foot in the small settlement of some twenty timber-and-thatch houses on the bank of the Wye where the river could be forded with relative ease, everything seemed destined to go wrong. She had simply sat and looked in horrified awe at the central keep of Clifford, recently rebuilt in local stone, her inheritance and her chosen home. It was grey and entirely forbidding.

‘It’s not exactly welcoming, is it?’ Lady Petronilla, lips pressed into a straight line to prevent an exclamation of sheer horror, sat in the bailey of Clifford Castle and viewed the near prospect from the safe advantage of her mare’s back. Her hands clutched around the reins at what she saw.

‘God’s bones!’ Less restrained, Rosamund’s first impression of her new home was dire. Was this —this hellish outpost on the very edge of what she considered to be civilisation—to be her home?

‘Don’t blaspheme, Rosamund.’ But the Countess’s tone was mild. ‘It’s not as bad as all that.’ A rat scurried across their path, larger than most cats. ‘Or perhaps it is.’