Linnet stared with growing fury. The young woman’s pose meant that Joscelin was being granted a more than generous view of cleavage down the unfastened neck-opening of the red gown. And he was taking full advantage.
After a moment he came to his senses sufficiently to lift the girl to her feet. She laid her hand over his, her long fingers enhanced by several fine gold rings and tipped by elegantly manicured nails. Lifting her head, she slanted him a look through eyes as hot and dark as coals. Her gaze was feral as it ranged over his naked chest and shoulders. She moistened her lips.
‘Your shirt, messire.’ Linnet thrust the garment at him then rounded on the girl. ‘Where were you when you were needed earlier?’
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, madam. I was paying my respects to Gile - Lord Montsorrel in the chapel. His death was a terrible shock to us all, and so soon after Lord Raymond’s, God rest their souls.’ She crossed herself and looked pathetically at Joscelin, her moist lower lip drooping.
‘I am sure it was a shock,’ Linnet retorted, adding for Joscelin’s benefit, ‘This is Helwis de Corbette, our seneschal’s daughter. She and her mother have been responsible for the housekeeping here these five years past.’
The girl shot Linnet a challenging look and moved closer to Joscelin. As she helped him don the shirt, her voice was low and intimate. ‘My lord, I will strive to perform anything you desire of me to your satisfaction.’ The final word was embellished with promise.
Linnet stifled a sound in the back of her throat. The words ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ burned the tip of her tongue. Joscelin’s eyes were very bright and his complexion slightly congested. Lust was a tangible aura in the room.
‘Then do this for me,’ he grated, his voice suddenly a harsh echo of William Ironheart’s. ‘Get out of my sight now and return to your devotions. Since you were so concerned for your lord’s soul as to avoid your duties here, you can spend from now until retiring in further vigil.’ He stepped away from the greedy touch of her fingers.
Helwis de Corbette gaped at him as if he had spoken in a foreign language.
‘Out!’ he snarled.
She uttered a gasp, stared between him and Linnet, then whirled and fled the room.
‘Giles’s solace in the time he was lord here, and yours if you want her, judging from her behaviour just now,’ Linnet said with bitter contempt.
‘You think I’d follow my father’s folly and take a mistress beneath my own wife’s roof?’ he growled and, before she could move or cry out, he put his arms around her waist, drew her hard against him and kissed her.
At first Linnet was too shocked to move. Images of herself and Raymond de Montsorrel embracing in this room were overlaid by the scratchy pressure of Joscelin’s kiss, the heat of his touch, the pungent odour of his sweat. If she had felt stifled earlier, now she felt well and truly engulfed.
He swept his hand down her spine in a slow, powerful stroke until he cupped her buttocks and pressed her closer to him. Her back strained. Against her belly she felt the vigorous surge of his erection. Releasing her lips, he nibbled her earlobe and the angle of her jaw. Then he took her hand and slowly, slowly guided it downwards. As her fingers touched the bulge in his chausses, he swallowed a groan.
Linnet knew what to do. Raymond had shown her once, his hand over hers, his voice coaxing. Oh yes, she knew. The quicker the release, the sooner she would be free, but not here, witnessed by her conscience, four wounded knights, two maids and quite possibly her son should he wake from his slumber in the wall-chamber beyond.
She snatched her hand away as if he had burned her, and struggled to free herself from his grip. Succeeding in wriggling one arm free, she hit him on his freshly bandaged shoulder with as much force as her position would allow.
He cried out and his hold slackened. She tore from his embrace and faced him, panting and wild-eyed. Joscelin stared at her then cursed and sat down on the coffer, his breath hissing through clenched teeth, his good hand clutching his injured shoulder.
Linnet gnawed her lip and, still poised for flight, watched him with apprehension.
His breathing eased. He extended his hand in a gesture of apology. ‘For what it’s worth, I’ve been on too tight a rein recently and that girl . . .’ He broke off and grimaced. ‘I give you my word of honour it won’t happen again.’
Linnet’s stomach was turning over and over. She knew he could have beaten her for defying him and that the incident might have ended in rape upon the floor rather than retreat and apology. ‘You frightened me,’ she said, then added, ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘Nor I to frighten you. I don’t want to live in a household like my father’s.’ He did not elaborate but, after a moment, sighed. The act of drawing and releasing a deep breath caused him to wrinkle his nose. ‘Is there a bathtub in this place? I stink to high heaven.’
‘There should be one in the laundry; I’ll find out.’ Linnet relaxed as their conversation started to flow over the difficult moment. ‘What about the silver?’
His glance flickered to the great bed and the mattress that had recently been unloaded from beneath the coffin and thrown across the rope frame. Safe among the layers of goose down stuffing were nestled thirty leather bags, each containing five marks of silver.
‘Leave it where it is for the nonce until I’ve had time to commission a new strongbox from the carpenter and the locksmith.’
‘Will you not be sleeping on it?’
His smile was wry. ‘And deprive a lady of her bed? No, Stephen’s organizing something for me in the wall-chamber near the chapel.’
‘And you trust me with the coin?’ She was driven by a devil to challenge him.
‘You would not cheat your own son. Yes, I trust you.’ His tone held mild rebuke as if he suspected her of deliberately needling him.
After he had gone, Linnet wandered to the bed and sat down upon it. It would have eased her conscience if he had taken the money into his own keeping or not stated his trust in her with so steady a gaze. No, she would not cheat Robert, he was all her life, but for his sake she had cheated Joscelin. She and Maude had sewn the thirty money bags into the mattress that night in London, but there had already been thirty marks stitched into one corner, money that she had sequestered from the strongbox in secret on the night Giles died. This was her security for the future, a secret hoard of her own.
She had made her bed and now she had to lie on it, lumps and all.
Chapter 13
‘For just how much is Corbette responsible in the keep and on the estate?’ Joscelin asked Linnet at table that night. The main dish was mutton. It was tough as saddle leather and in places charred black, speaking of an inattentive hand at the spit. Joscelin swallowed a final mouthful by resorting to a liberal gulp of wine and abandoned the meat in favour of a dish of steamed mussels.
‘I do not know. I haven’t dwelt at Rushcliffe since . . . since the quarrel.’ Linnet looked at him from the corner of her eye. He was acting as if nothing had happened between them a few hours ago but she could remember the taste of him too vividly to follow his lead.
He had made thorough use of the bathtub that had been found and he now exuded a scent of coarse laundry soap that stung her nostrils and made her want to sneeze. Time, she thought, and past time to set to work with the maids and manufacture something less caustic for personal use. Time would also have to be found to sew Joscelin some new tunics. The one he was wearing tonight was the brown wool from the horse fair and was beginning to look more than just hard-worn. Perhaps it would assuage her guilt about the thirty silver marks if she made him some good clothes, as befitted a dutiful wife.