His Lady's Ransom

Will sputtered into his goblet, and an ebullient smile once more brightened his face.

“I didn’t think you’d dare come down heavy on me, Ian. You, of all people! You’ve not been exactly continent since your lady wife died these many years ago. Still, my mother’s latest missive all but shriveled my manhood with dire threats of what you’d do if I did not cease my…my preoccupation with the Lady Madeline.”

Ian’s lips twitched. “Mothers do tend to see these things differently.”

“Yes, well, this…this is somewhat different, Ian.” Will’s broad smile took on a tentative edge once more, and he leaned forward in his seat. “The Lady Madeline is different. I’ve never met anyone like her.”

“That’s what you said about the chandler’s daughter, the one with the astonishing repertoire of tricks with candles,” Ian commented dryly.

“She’s not like that!”

“Nay? Nor like the two sisters of the count de Marbeau, the ones who—?”

“I would not have you speak of the Lady Madeline in the same breath as those two.”

The cool command in Will’s voice made Ian’s brow arch in surprise. He set aside his wine and studied his brother. The boy’s—no, the young man’s—face wore a mask of wounded dignity. Ian had enough years of experience dealing with youthful squires and pages, guiding their transition from boy to knight, to know when to prick their pretensions and when to listen.

“Very well, I will not speak of her thus,” he told Will easily. “You speak, instead. Tell me of this paragon who has you arrayed in your finest velvet robes and gold rings.”

“She’s…she’s special, Ian. Charming and gracious, with a laugh like silver bells carrying on the summer breeze.”

Ian’s brow inched up another notch, and Will leaned forward, his blue eyes shining with sincerity.

“She’s not beautiful, exactly, but makes all other women pale in her company. And kind—she’s kind to a fault.”

“She’d have to be, to pay any attention to a clumsy-footed clunch such as you,” Ian agreed.

Will nodded, in perfect accord with this description of one whose inheritance rivaled those of the wealthiest knights in England and whose form was fast fulfilling its promise of raw strength and masculine beauty.

“She tells me I’m but a callow cub, as well,” he admitted, sheep-faced. “But she’s given me her hand twice in the dance, and I have hopes of wearing her token in the tourney.”

As he proceeded to describe the Lady Madeline, Will’s stock of poetic phrases ran out long before his enthusiasm for his subject. By the time Ian had suffered hearing how her hair gleamed like the glossy bark of a towering chestnut tree for the third time, and how her eyes sparkled like the veriest stars several times over, he’d heard enough to make him distinctly uneasy.

To his experienced ears, it sounded as if the lady but played with Will. She enticed him with smiles, yet kept him at arm’s length with a show of maidenly reserve. Such false modesty from one who had buried two husbands and was rumored to bed with the king’s son grated on Ian. Hand upraised, he called a halt to Will’s paean to the lady.

“Enough, man, enough! You make my head ache with all your mangled poetry. Let’s go down and seek out this exemplar of womanly virtues. I would see if she lives up to half of your honeyed words.”

Will clambered to his feet with boyish eagerness. “Aye, let’s go. I’m anxious for you to meet her.”

“No more than I am,” Ian responded easily, but his eyes were hard as he followed Will from the chamber.

They made slow progress across Kenilworth’s vast hall, as many acquaintances called greetings to Ian. All the great barons owing homage to King Henry were summoned thrice yearly for these state occasions, held in conjunction with church feast days. It was an opportunity for the king to consult with his barons, and for the lords themselves to share news and gossip. Those who had not provided knight’s service in the latest war were anxious to hear Ian’s account of the action. Will lingered by Ian’s side for a while, then spotted a small knot of courtiers at the far side of the hall. He nudged his brother in the side with an elbow.

“’Tis her, Ian. The Lady Madeline. I would go and speak with her. Join me when you can.”

From a corner of his eye, Ian watched his brother’s passage across the hall. His lips tightened at the fatuous expression that settled on Will’s face as he bent over the hand of a slight figure in a flowing crimson gown.

Seeing her from across the hall, Ian’s first impression of the Lady Madeline was that she hadn’t changed much from the mousy young maid he half remembered. Surrounded by a ring of richly dressed men and elegant women, her slight figure was barely visible. He could just make out her profile, with a nose more short and pert than aquiline, and a chin more distinguished by its firmness than by soft, rounded feminine beauty. From the little Ian could see of her braided hair, caught up in two gold cauls over her ears and covered with a silken veil, it appeared more brown than the bright chestnut Will had rhapsodized over. Some of the tension in Ian’s body eased. Whatever the rumors about the Lady Madeline’s charms, she did not appear to be the sultry beauty Ian had feared. It shouldn’t be all that difficult to detach Will from her circle.

At that moment the lady looked over her shoulder in response to a remark made by the elderly knight at her side. Flaring torches set in iron holders high above illuminated her face as she made some teasing reply.

A slow, provocative smile transformed her nondescript features. Green eyes, so bright and luminescent a man could lose himself in them, glowed with mischievous, tantalizing, stunningly sensual laughter.

Ian drew in a sharp breath, feeling the impact of those incredible eyes like a mailed fist to his stomach.

Chapter Two

Madeline’s low, merry laugh rippled through the crowd of courtiers surrounding her.

“Nay, Sir Percy,” she told the grizzled knight who hovered at her shoulder, “you may not have my garter. Imagine what people would think if you were to wear such an intimate item in the tourney.”

“They would think what is my fondest desire, lady.”

“Oh, so?” she said teasingly. “And just moments ago I heard you say you desired above all else to win a certain war-horse, if you could but unseat its owner. ‘Tis the trouble with you fearsome knights. You know not whether you want first your horse or your lady.”

The courtiers around her burst into laughter as the older knight began a gallant repartee, trying to convince her that she owned his heart. Madeline turned aside his flowery phrases with practiced ease, enjoying the lively give-and-take. Her eyes sparkled as Sir Percy effusively professed his devotion. When the older knight paused at last, William edged him aside with more boyish eagerness than polished address.

“Lady, may I take you in to supper?”

“Nay, Sir William, I am promised.” Madeline hid a smile at his crestfallen face. “But I’ll save a dance for you later. The rondeau, perhaps? ‘Twill do my image no end of good to be partnered by the handsomest young knight at the king’s court.”

Will nodded eagerly and bent over her hand, his bright curls shining against the crimson of her sleeve. Madeline’s gaze softened at his reverent salute. In truth, he was a comely lad, with a friendly, open disposition to match his well-proportioned frame. That he’d already made a name for himself on the tourney field and in several battles didn’t detract from the air of youthful exuberance that she found so refreshing.

“Will you at least allow me to bring my brother to meet you before the boards are laid?” he asked, retaining her hand until she slipped it from his grasp.

“What, has he arrived at last? The earl of Margill? The same glorious knight and fearless warrior I’ve heard so much about these last weeks?”

“Don’t tell him I described him thus,” Will begged, grinning down at her. “In his presence, I refer to him as the biggest churl in Christendom! Give me leave, and I’ll deliver him to your side this instant.”

Madeline nodded her assent, curious to meet the man whose sayings and accomplishments peppered William’s conversation with unconscious frequency. In the weeks since the youth had drifted into her circle—nay, blundered into her circle, for with those huge feet, the lad would never drift—she’d heard much of this esteemed older brother. She had a vague memory of meeting him once, long ago, when she’d wed her first lord. She’d been too young and too nervous to remember much of the crowd of knights and ladies who attended the festivities. But if she could not recall Ian de Burgh in any detail, there were many women here at Kenilworth who could. Since her return to court, Madeline had heard more than one lady sighing over the earl’s beguiling blue eyes and lazy smile. From their tittering, giggling comments about his person, Madeline had formed a mental image of a peacock on the strut.

At length Will elbowed his way back into the circle surrounding her. Madeline looked up, and her gaze locked with a pair of midnight blue eyes, startling in a face so tanned by sun and wind. A shock of sheer awareness darted down her spine.

This was no puffed-up courtier, impressed by the power and authority of his huge estates.

This was a man in his prime, a knight honed to a muscled leanness by vigorous activity, and tougher by far than his tawny-haired, chiseled handsomeness would suggest.

Madeline swallowed. Having twice been wed, she was yet a stranger to the feeling that suddenly coursed through her at the sight of this tall, broad-shouldered man.

“I would present my brother, Lord Ian,” Will said eagerly. “He’s professed himself most anxious to meet you.”

“Indeed, my lady, after hearing Will’s flowing verses, I could scarce wait to meet the object of his poetry.”

Recovering her poise, Madeline threw the youth a look of mock dismay. “Oh, no, Sir William! You’ve not subjected your brother to those verses!”

“Indeed he has,” de Burgh drawled. “All of them. Several times over.”

To her surprise, Madeline felt a flush rising above the square cut bodice of her gown. By the holy Virgin, she hadn’t blushed in years. But for some reason the thought of the earl reading those outrageous descriptions of her face and form disconcerted her.

Undaunted by their disparagement of his compositions, Will gave a cheerful grin. “My verses will improve with practice.”

“I hope so,” his brother interjected smoothly, “else the lady will not allow you to continue to pay homage at her skirts.”

Madeline’s eyes flashed up to meet the earl’s. Was she the only one who heard the soft warning in his words? Or sensed intimidation in the way his hand closed over her upper arm, to ease her away from the rest of the group?

Apparently so. When he suggested casually that he wished to further her acquaintance where there was less noise, Will nodded in acquiescence, and the rest of her circle stood aside. The conversation behind her picked up with barely a pause as Madeline found herself heading toward a nearby alcove.

She fought a ripple of annoyance at the way the man detached her from her friends with such effortless skill. She wasn’t used to being led away without being consulted as to her own wishes in the matter. She wasn’t used to being led at all. Tugging her arm from his firm hold, she turned to face Ian. Madeline allowed no trace of her irritation at his high-handed manners to show in her voice, or in the half smile she sent him.

“I gather you wish to speak with me privately because you’re concerned about your brother’s choice of an objet d’amour.”

His sun-bleached brows rose. She’d taken him aback, Madeline saw with some satisfaction. She suspected it wasn’t often that anyone did so.

“You believe in plain speaking, I see,” he commented after a moment.

“Yes, I do. It saves much time and misunderstanding. And spares me unsubtle warnings such as you issued just now.”

After a brief hesitation, he made a slight bow. “My pardon, Lady Madeline. I hadn’t realized I was being so clumsy in my address.”

He leaned back against the stone wall, his arms folded, and ran his eyes slowly over her face. At his appraising look, Madeline fought the flush that threatened to stain her bosom once again.

“’Tis one of the things I like most in your brother,” she said with faint challenge. “He is refreshingly open and honest.”

“Aye, he is that. And as yet untainted by the ways of the court.”

“You fear I will be the one to taint him?”

“This is plain speaking indeed,” the earl murmured, straightening.

“I’m neither stupid nor a timid maiden, my lord. I know well what is said of me. And I know, as well, that Will’s family is concerned for him. Or so I’ve been advised by half a dozen of the older tabbies at court,” she finished dryly.

To Madeline’s surprise, his blue eyes lightened with rueful laughter. For the first time, she witnessed the beguiling charm the other ladies of the courts had tittered about whenever Ian de Burgh’s name was mentioned.

“’Twould appear my lady mother is most industrious in her correspondence.”

Madeline’s own lips curved in instinctive response to the smile creasing his lean cheeks. “And you, my lord? Do you share your mother’s concerns?”

“I? I begin to share my brother’s interest.”

His soft, slow drawl raised ripples of pleasure all along Madeline’s nerves. When the man chose to be charming, he did so with a vengeance, she thought somewhat breathlessly. That particular combination of gleaming eyes and crooked grin was enough to make any woman’s breath catch in her throat. She ran her tongue across suddenly dry lips and sought for something to say.

“Your pardon, my lord, my lady.”

She turned to see one of the household pages standing just beyond the alcove. The golden lion, symbol of the house of Plantagenet, shone on the boy’s red tunic.

“They’re laying the boards and will soon begin to serve. Lord John sent me to escort you to your seat, my lady.”

“Aye, I’ll be with you shortly.”

Madeline turned back to finish her conversation with the earl. She had yet to assure him that he need not worry about Will. The boy’s adoration amused her, but she’d been in the world enough to know how to let down a young knight without shattering either his pride or his illusions.

The earl’s closed expression stopped the words in her mouth. No trace of either laughter or friendliness lingered in his eyes. Confused, Madeline stared up at his tanned face.

He bent at the waist in a bow so shallow it was more insult than salute. “Don’t let me keep you from a royal summons, madame.”

His cold tone sent a spear of regret through her so swift and sharp she had to bite back a small gasp. So he, like all the others, disparaged her friendship with John. This knight, whose reputation with women was common knowledge, dared scorn her.

Madeline knew well the rumors that flitted through the court about her, skittering here and there through the castle halls like old rushes stirred by the drafts that swept the winding corridors. ‘Twas widely believed that the king’s son took her to mistress. If John led her in the dance, heads would bow and whispers pass from mouth to mouth. If she danced with another knight, knowing eyes would flash the message that she sought another husband to wear the cuckold’s horns while she dallied with the king’s son. After all, she’d held the man enthralled since childhood and through two marriages.

Normally Madeline dismissed the whispers with the ease of long practice. The look in de Burgh’s eyes, however, pricked at her pride.

Lifting her chin, she nodded coolly. “Aye, I must not keep the prince waiting.”

Allowing none of her inner turmoil to show in her face, Madeline followed the page through the throng filling Kenilworth’s vast hall and took her seat at the high table beside the man who was youngest son to King Henry and Queen Eleanor.

Her usual place was lower, well below the salt, with the other maidens and widows in warship to the crown. But with the king not yet arrived and Richard Lion-heart otherwise disposed, John had ordered the seating this night to suit his own preferences. Madeline bit back a sigh as she caught the sly glances thrown her way from those seated at the lower tables. By elevating her well above her station, John had once again fueled the rumors about them. ‘Twould do no good to protest, however. It never did. Spoiled, darkly handsome, and indulged by his father from earliest infancy, the young lord was rarely denied his wishes.

“Why don’t you eat?” he asked when she took a meager helping from the dish of eels stewed in honey and wild onions that a perspiring page presented. “You’ll never attract another husband if you don’t fatten up and fill out your gowns more. You were ever flat as a sword blade, Maddy.”

Her gaze flew up to meet his dancing black eyes. “Aye, and you were ever ready to tell me so, my lord. You’ll never know how much I feared my first wedding and bedding because of your slighting comments about my shape when we were children.”

“Ha! That doting old fool who wed you cared not about your shape. He was as beguiled as they all are by your green eyes and ripe lips.”

The lips under discussion lost their ripeness. Slowly Madeline set down her two-tined fork—a recent introduction to the court—and turned to give the man beside her a level look.

“I’ve valued your friendship since I first came to your mother’s household these many years ago. But I’ll not allow you to speak so of the man who wed me. He was good, and kind, and treated me most gently.”

“He was also so old his knees rattled when he walked.” John held up a hand. “Nay, nay, do not glower at me. He was good and kind, if so you say.”

He waited until she had given a stiff nod and picked up her fork once more, then grinned wickedly.

“But I’ll warrant you enjoyed your second wedding and bedding far more.”

“Jack-a-napes,” Madeline sputtered, using the nickname she’d called him by privately since they were four years old. “Do not start on that again!”

He leaned forward, his shoulder brushing hers. “Come, Maddy. Your second lord may have had wool for brains, but he was rumored to have the accoutrements of an ox. Were the pleasures of the marriage bed all that they’re rumored to be?”

“You’ll find out when you consummate your marriage to the Lady Isabel,” Madeline replied lightly. “As if you didn’t already know!”

At the mention of his betrothed, John’s eyes lost their dark light. He drew back and lifted his wine goblet to his lips.

Madeline stabbed at a slithery eel and cursed herself under her breath for her slip. As the youngest of the king’s eight children, John had no hereditary duchies to claim as his own, and much resented his landless state. To rectify this situation, King Henry had debated endlessly whether to strip his other sons of some of their lands to give John a heritage. He’d also betrothed him as a young boy to Isabel of Gloucester, Strong-bow’s great heiress, a cold, supercilious girl. Despite the fact that Isabel’s holdings constituted as yet his only estates, or mayhap because of it, John secretly despised the dark-haired heiress. He was careful not to show his dislike, but Madeline knew of his disdain for his betrothed, as she knew most of his innermost thoughts.

Almost since the day she’d come into the king’s wardship, a lonely little four-year-old, John had been her friend and companion. Madeline could recall as if it were yesterday the rainy April morning he’d released her, white-faced and stiff with fright, from the dark privy a mischievous playmate had locked her in hours before. On that day, he’d become her instant hero.

Madeline often wondered at the unlikely friendship that had sprung from that inauspicious meeting. Although the son of the most powerful king in Christendom, John had always alternated between flashing smiles and dark melancholy. Madeline, by contrast, was the orphan of a minor baron and found easy release for her ready laughter. Yet, whenever the young lord could steal away from his tutors and Madeline from her duties to Queen Eleanor, the two children would explore the gardens or the stables, tearing hose and skirts in their adventures. Over the years, the friendship between the prince and maid had grown haphazardly, in fits and starts, but grown it had.

Not even Madeline’s two marriages, as brief and as fruitless as they’d been, had lessened the bond. Her first lord, a kind, chivalrous old knight who professed himself delighted with his child bride, had taken her into his household when she was twelve. Spoiled and petted and shamelessly indulged, Madeline had gone willingly to his bed to consummate their marriage two years later. When he died within a twelvemonth, the king had taken the young widow into wardship once again.

King Henry himself had chosen Madeline’s second husband, a brawny but slow-witted young knight who’d all but fallen over his feet in his desire for the lady. The knight had gladly paid the exorbitant bride price into the royal coffers, reverently and most satisfactorily bedded his wife—at least in his mind—then promptly lost his life in a mad charge across a battlefield.

Now she was once more the king’s ward. At John’s request, she’d been brought back to reside within the royal household, while castellans managed her estates and rendered their revenues to the crown. Madeline didn’t mind. ‘Twas the only home she’d ever known, after all, and John the only constant in the shifting world in which she’d come to womanhood. This time, her friend had promised her, she would not have to leave until she so chose. This time he’d used his influence with his father, who’d agreed Madeline would have a say in the choice of her next lord.

Her next husband would not be quite as old as her first, Madeline had already decided, nor as foolhardy as her second. She wanted a man strong enough to hold her lands and mature enough to manage them wisely, yet young enough to laugh with. Someone to stoke the fires of passion that flickered within her but had, as yet, not been fanned to flames.

Unbidden, Madeline’s gaze drifted down the boards and met that of Ian de Burgh. At the look in his blue eyes, she stiffened. Suddenly the sweetmeat she had just bitten into tasted like ashes in her mouth.

She’d hoped, nay dreamed, for a husband such as Lord Ian. One whose body made her breath catch and whose eyes bespoke intelligence and wit. But the scorn that now curled his mouth made a mockery of her dreams. Better by far to take one of those who dangled after her, Madeline decided with a sigh, than to waste her wishes on a man who clearly believed the court’s gossip. Swearing a silent vow to avoid the earl in the future, Madeline gave her attention to the prince.

As the days passed, Ian felt both his ire and his unwilling fascination with Lady Madeline grow in equal measures. The lady was like a moth, he decided, light and frivolous, fluttering from one man to the next. With the king’s arrival, Kenilworth Castle was filled to overflowing, yet Ian had only to walk past a crowded salon to hear her merry laughter. He couldn’t stroll into the great hall of an evening without seeing a knot of courtiers clustered about a slender form and knowing she was holding court.

She was discreet enough not to flaunt her relationship with the king’s son in his father’s presence, but she flirted with every other male in the castle, it seemed.

Every male except him.

Ian shrugged, telling himself that he cared naught about the lady’s cold stare when he’d chanced upon her in the corridor yestereve, but in truth he was no more used to being snubbed than he was to having his brother ignore his subtle tugs on the reins.

Despite his efforts to detach Will from the lady’s circle, the lad was well and truly smitten. He’d join Ian in the hunt with great good humor, and participate vigorously in the games leading up to the great tourney that was to begin in a few days. But, like an iron filing drawn to a lodestone, Will would find his way to the lady’s side as soon as he could.