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His hesitation made her curious. “Before what became obvious?”
“He didn’t realize at first I was the more powerful knight. Some men, less tactful than me—”
She smothered a laugh in his chest.
“—made it clear through word and deed they considered him a knight in my service.”
“Is he not?”
“Not then! How could he be in my service when I didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of?”
“But you always knew you would win a lordship, and he always knew he couldn’t.”
Hugh’s silence condemned Sir Lyndon’s lack of ambition.
“So he went from companion to supplicant,” Edlyn continued.
“He is not beyond redemption, I think. He was always a man of honor.”
A man of honor, Edlyn thought, who had grown bitter with the passing years as Hugh’s star shone ever brighter and his own dimmed and faded. But she kept that thought to herself as Hugh’s fingers raised her chin and his head came close to hers. She braced herself for a kiss, but he did no more than touch her lips with his.
He made no further move, and she asked, “Are we going to—”
“Nay!” He denied her swiftly and with a vigor that meant, mayhap, he wished otherwise. Then more moderately, he said, “You’re tired.”
“Well, aye, but…” When did a woman’s condition ever matter to a man? As far as she knew, all a woman had to do to pleasure a man was to be there.
“I’m sorry.” He touched her head briefly. “I know you want me, but you have worked long today. For tonight, at least, you’ll have to abjure your desires.”
A soldier can sleep anywhere, anytime, and Hugh did so, leaving Edlyn awake and unsure whether to laugh or curse.
14
It was big. Bigger than Hugh ever imagined, even in his most magnificent dreams. Castle Roxford stretched across the lush green countryside like one gigantic blot of hostile stone. The dry moat bristled with sharpened stakes pointed outward. The drawbridge, when lowered, would allow ten men to walk abreast. The gatehouse crouched around the drawbridge like a mother wolf over a vulnerable cub. Its crenelations bit the sky with gray teeth, and every inch of the outer walls had been built for ease of defense.
It was the best endowment the prince had ever given.
“I wonder if there’s a feather bed anywhere in there.”
Hugh turned his head and stared at Edlyn. A feather bed? She could look on that imposing castle and worry about a feather bed?
She rubbed her back. “I am tired of sleeping on the ground these last few nights. Not that I blame you for hurrying away from Castle Juxon, but to spend a night with a roof over my head and clean furs covering me will be pleasant.” She glanced at Hugh. “Aren’t you going to send your herald to ask for admittance?”
His herald? Did he have to? He’d taken so many castles over the years, it just seemed that announcing himself and walking in was too easy. He wanted to fight for this estate. Only in that way would he truly make it his own.
Edlyn got tired of waiting and said to Dewey, “Go up and proclaim that Hugh, earl of Roxford, has arrived to take possession of his new demesne.” Dewey hesitated and looked to Hugh, but she urged, “Hurry. Hurry, lad.”
Hugh nodded his permission, and his squire rode forward. In a voice that broke in the middle of a word, he shouted his message to the top of the wall.
The chains on the drawbridge squealed as the toothed wheel fed them out, and the wooden gate landed on the opposite side of the moat with a thump. Not a sound came from inside the walls.
“What’s wrong with them?” Edlyn wondered.
Hugh looked around at his men. Wharton, veteran of too many campaigns to count, shrugged. He’d seen everything and made no judgment now. Sir Lyndon mingled with the other experienced knights, who watched the keep with narrowed eyes. The squires and pages imitated them, even Wynkyn, who walked beside a horse rather than ride and jar his shoulder. Parkin and Allyn kept him company, and like Edlyn, they seemed bewildered by the silence that greeted them.
“They’re frightened.” Gesturing to his men to maintain their positions, Hugh urged his horse forward. “And rightly so.”
He moved toward the gate, but he watched for treachery. This was, after all, the former earl of Roxford’s primary holding. Edmund Pembridge’s family had held it since William had conquered England, and everything inside would be stamped with his possession. If one of Pembridge’s men-at-arms were more loyal to his former lord than to his king, a chance-met arrow would end the problem—if only momentarily.
