Page 54 of The Rose at Twilight
Alys hoped he was right, but the hope lasted only until she was rudely awakened the following morning to find not only Sir Lionel’s soldiers in the chamber but Sir Lionel himself.
He stood watching from the threshold while his men searched every inch of the room, overturning coffers and spilling the contents onto the floor.
Madeline, Jonet, and Elva were yanked roughly from their pallets, and when Sir Lionel ordered Alys to arise—with only a quilt wrapped around her to cover her nakedness—the mattress on her bed was torn off and shaken as if the men expected to find someone hidden within it.
Sir Lionel was livid, and the men holding the women were not gentle.
When Elva cried out with pain, Alys said sharply, “Make them stop!”
“Where is he?”
Alys nearly asked whom he meant, but the look on his face deterred her, and she said, “Far away, I hope. You said you wanted a word with Sir Nicholas Merion. I have only put forward your meeting, sir, though I doubt it will go as you planned.”
“Oh, it will still go the same,” he growled, “but you will not enjoy the waiting as you seem to think you will, my girl.” He made a gesture toward the others. “Take them below and throw them in with the men.”
“No!” Alys cried. “You cannot do such a thing!”
“Do you not trust even the men who brought you here?”
“Oh.” Alys breathed a sigh of relief and moved to follow the others.
“No, no, little heiress,” he said, barring her way. “You do not go with them. You will remain here with me for a spell.”
She stepped back, fully aware of her nakedness beneath the quilt, aware that he was moving aside to let the others pass him, that in too short a time she would be completely alone with him.
They were gone. Glancing around nastily, she noted the poker near the fireplace and wondered if she could get near it without his discerning her intent. But his gaze followed hers.
He chuckled. “So you would crack my skull, would you?”
“Aye, if I could,” she retorted.
“Well, you cannot, but I’ve a notion to strip you of that quilt you clutch so tightly, just to teach you the consequences of such defiant talk. What think you of that?”
She longed to tell him what she thought of him, but she remembered her own words to Madeline and forced herself to reply calmly, “I hope you will not, sir. I am at your mercy, as I know full well. I did speak hastily, but if you can find it in your heart to be merciful now, I will guard my tongue in future.”
“Prettily spoken, my dear, but I should be a fool to believe you, and I am no man’s fool, nor any woman’s.”
“What will you do?” He had come no nearer, but the way he looked at her made her cringe inside and she had all she could do to conceal her revulsion.
“You are a choice piece of goods, madam, even without your inheritance. Little did I realize it, but when Richard fell, he did me a greater disservice than I knew. Even after I’d arranged for you to come into your own, I thought only of the chattel, not the bedchamber benefits that would accompany our union.
God refuse me, all I remembered was a wee chit of a girl, all teeth and hair, with a body little more than skin and bone—not even a good armful for a man.
But seeing you now, grown—” He broke off, staring at her, sweat breaking out on his brow.
“Just look at me! Not more than ten of a morning, and already my body is craving yours. Tell me why I should not indulge the craving.”
She took another step back, but the mattress they had pulled from the bed was behind her and she nearly tripped. Steadying herself, she said, “You would not dare.”
“Don’t be a fool. God refuse me, but I should be a greater one to delay.
The lad went to fetch Sir Nick, did he not?
He’ll not best me, I vow, but a taste of your charms can only spur me on to win them for mine own!
” Grinning, he stepped toward her. He was between her and the door now with less than a dozen feet separating them.
“That mattress will accommodate us nicely where it lies. Drop the quilt, lass. Show me what I would fight for.”
Terrified, she watched him approach, one slow step at a time, as though he understood her terror and would draw it out, as though her very fear aroused him.
He was tall, nearly as tall as Nicholas, and she knew that fighting him would be futile, for he would overcome her most strenuous attempt with ease.
He would take her, possess her, and he would demean her, too.
She could see the last in the way he looked at her.
In the few seconds it took him to take three steps toward her, her mind seemed to have frozen, but with the fourth step it snapped to life again.
Straightening her shoulders, she looked him in the eye and said, “You wish to see me, sir? By heaven then, since I cannot fight you, I have no choice but to obey.”
He stopped where he was when she spoke the first words, and when, with the last, she opened the quilt wide, his eyes nearly popped from his head.
Seeing his mouth drop open as well, she cast the quilt hard away to the left, and when his startled gaze followed it, she leapt to her right, snatching up the poker and whirling to face him with it held out menacingly before her.
His right hand flew instantly, automatically, to his sword hilt, but it halted there, and his countenance hardened. “Drop that, wench, or by the bones of Christ, I will thrash you till your buttocks are afire before I take you.”
“I will not,” she said. “Use your sword if you will. Kill me if you must! I will never submit to you, Sir Lionel.”
“Oh, you will submit,” he said. “And afterward, in the hall tonight, you will kneel to me before them all and swear an oath of fealty to me as if I were your king.”
“I will not!”
“You will, and by Christ’s bones, you’ll kiss my feet after, or I’ll strip you naked before them all and thrash you again till you beg to serve me.”
He grinned then, lewdly, and she felt her courage fleeing, but she forced her thoughts away from the spectacle she must be making for him, and the one he was creating for himself in his lurid imagination, and fixed her attention on his eyes, watching for him to leap at her, wondering if he was so certain he could best her that he would come at her barehanded.
If he did, there was a chance she might step out of his way long enough to bring the poker crashing down upon his head.
He was tall for such a maneuver, but if he lunged it might be possible.
As the last thought crossed her mind, she saw, just at the edge of her vision, a movement of the chamber door.
Though she tried not to look—a certain furtiveness in the movement made it plain that it was not one of his own men who entered—she had all she could do to keep her eyes on him.
When she caught a glimpse of an arm sleeved in familiar light chain mail over leather, and a dark leather-gloved hand pushing the door wider, she nearly cried aloud her blessings upon Ian.
Just then Sir Lionel leapt, his hand clamping like a vise around the poker, and Alys’s scream drowned all other sound in the room.
One moment, Sir Lionel Everingham was leering down at her, his hand twisting hers unmercifully as he wrenched the poker from her grasp; the next moment, with a horrible bubbling cry in his throat, he collapsed at her feet.
She stared down at him for a long moment, watching his life drain out of him, hating what she saw yet grateful that he was dead and could not threaten or torment any of them again.
Then, wanting only for Nicholas to hold her tight, his chain mail notwithstanding, she took a quick, impulsive step toward her rescuer before she looked up and stopped in her tracks, her mouth open, her eyes wide with shock.
“’Tis always a pleasure to see you, Lady Alys,” Viscount Lovell said with his mischievous grin, “but I’ll warrant your husband would dislike my seeing quite so much of you.”