God in heaven, you are the strangest woman I have ever met! And the most determined. Have you no pride at all? Here I have said that I will not bed you! I have denied you children! And still you want to be my friend?”
“I do,” she admitted. “It makes more sense than not.”
He blew out a huff of frustration, or perhaps disbelief. “You ask for a man’s death in one breath and laugh in jest the next. You leap from slayings to beddings without pause to breathe. What am I to think of you?”
“So long as you do think of me,” Sara declared. “Your anger will fade eventually. I would be a wife in truth, Richard. One who will love you if you let me. Your children, those you have and those we might make, would provide great joy for me, not cause for complaint. Think me mad for that, if you will,” she said reasonably, “but do think of me.”
She watched his face as he took in all that she had said. When his expression offered her no hope of succeeding in her mission today, she quietly turned and left him alone.
He would come around to her way of thinking, she decided. It would take time and great effort on her part, considering how wronged he felt, but she would not give it up.
He spoke of her having no pride, and she supposed it must seem so to him at the moment. If he only knew that pride of hers. It would be the thing that kept her at him until he admitted to himself that he needed her. He might never love her as he had loved that first wife of his, but Richard did need her. She had seen it in his eyes.
Think of her? That request certainly unleashed all the dormant humor within him. He felt like laughing uproariously at the moment. At himself. Here he sat, hardly able to rise from the damned chair unassisted, and yet his traitorous body was raging with lust.
Did she know what she had done to him with her uninvited touches? Could she see the turmoil she aroused in him with her passion for justice, that she compounded it with merry laughter, even though at his own expense? And that offer of love, so sweetly made, her crowning touch. Witch.
Richard allowed himself a groan of agony as he pushed out of the chair. The pain in his chest ought to take his mind from his other ache, but it did not. He made it to the bed and lay down. The fullness of his body still mocked him. Richard cradled his head on his hands and stared at the canopy above.
Of course Sara knew her effect on him. Women learned such things early on. They were female weapons, those enticing tricks. Evaline surely had used hers well enough when it suited her. A man could excuse his gullibility when he was but eighteen or twenty. However, Richard had believed himself immune to those devices at the age of twenty-seven.
Again he studied the length of his body, willing himself back to a normal state. Control the mind, control the action, he thought to himself.
The long year of celibacy had no doubt prompted the reaction to this new wife of his. After that one unplanned coupling with a willing chambermaid last Michaelmas at a Dover inn, he had sworn off altogether. Unlike a noblewoman, a common wench might be pleasurable and pleasured, but Richard always regretted such occurrences afterward.
He worried that such women would feel that he took advantage of his station as a noble. He had done that once, prior to his first marriage. The resulting child, labeled a bastard, had suffered for his mistake, even if the mother had gained by it.
His own mother had been a commoner, a former servant of his father’s first wife. Richard knew well that the indomitable Janet never let any man use her ill, noble or otherwise. She had wed his father to look after the man, fulfilling a deathbed promise to her lady, Alan’s mother.
Though the marriage had proved long and successful, Richard had not failed to note the barbs his mother suffered because of her former status. He had decided never to wed a woman not of his station and cause her that kind of hurt.
Neither had he intended to wed another of his own kind. Without exception, they were either power mad and conniving like the ones he had met at court and in his travels with the king, or else they were like the angelic Evaline.
She had been perfect, of course. Chaste, above reproach, serene and so lovely it hurt to look at her. Evaline had possessed a cool, passionless nature, which everyone knew was a most admirable trait in a noble wife. By all rights, he should have loved her beyond all reason. Instead of appreciating her natural reserve and dignity, Richard had thought her aloof and cold. He had been at fault, not Evaline. He only realized that after she had died.
Because neither class of woman suited him as wife, Richard had intended to remain unwed forever, but that intention lay in ashes now. And this wellborn wife seemed to be of the conniving ilk. She was in no way reserved, that was for certain.
Question was, what did Sara of Fernstowe want so badly that she would offer her body? Her enemy vanquished for one thing. She had admitted it, but she must know he had no choice about that with orders from the king. A son to inherit her lands? So she said, but he could not imagine a woman suffering so when she would never hold the profits in her own hands. What, then?
His body ached to give her what she asked, for whatever reason she asked it. Why not succumb to her wish and bed her?
Because she would loathe it, that was why. As all noble daughters were taught, Sara would believe it degrading, a necessary evil for begetting. And Richard knew he would hate equally a pretense that she liked it, or a cursory avowal that she did not. Better to do without.
Unfortunately, he did lust after Sara of Fernstowe. If she affected him this powerfully when he felt so weak from a wounding, how the devil would he manage to resist her when he grew strong again?
Friendship, indeed! A gust of laughter broke free and Richard was infinitely glad Sara was nowhere near to hear it, for he knew it might please her. That was the last thing he wanted to do.
The next morning, Sara halted just outside her husband’s chamber. She smiled to herself as she leaned back against the wall and waited for him to immerse himself in the tub Eustiss had brought and filled for him.
Through the partially open door, she had caught a brief glimpse of him unclothed before she stepped back. It would take her a moment to still that wicked heart of hers. Richard’s was a finely wrought figure, even viewed from the back.
In a few moments Eustiss came out and passed her with a look of silent amusement. Sara immediately marched in humming and plunked down a fresh change of clothing on his bed, garments of her father’s that no one else at Fernstowe could wear.
“Here. Have these. Except for the hunting clothes, which were ruined, yours are much too fine for—”
“God’s breath!” The abrupt slosh of water and his shout interrupted. “What do you here?”
Sara walked to the tub, hands on her hips, grinned down at him and leaned over. “Attending your bath, of course.”
He had clasped his hands over his manhood, scowling as though she’d come to relieve him of it. “I can bathe myself. Now, leave me!”
Sara tossed her head back and stared at the ceiling as she spoke. “I’ve seen all you have there, husband. No need to play coy.”
“Coy? Have you no thought to a man’s privacy? Or is there such a thing in this place?”
“Not much of it, I do admit,” Sara said, laughing. She scooped up the soap and cloth from the bathing stand by the tub. “Lean forward, I shall wash your back. Mind you keep that wound dry.”
“Devil take the wound. Go away.” But he sounded less adamant and he bent forward just as she’d instructed.
Sara dipped the rag, soaped it and began scrubbing circles on his back. She dug hard into the bunched muscles. He bit off a groan of pleasure, but not before she’d heard it. Sara smiled, enjoying the small success.
“What do you mean you’ve seen everything?” he asked carefully. “I thought Eustiss did the bathing before.”
“Eustiss? Ha!” Sara exclaimed. “That one rarely bathes himself,