Page 52 of My Warrior
The young whelp made it sound like an honor, and Cambria had to bite her tongue to restrain a hot retort. Instead, she meekly nodded. Myles rubbed his hands together and smugly strode off.
She shuffled into the kitchen, ducking her head out of sight as Katie brushed past with an armload of cheat bread and oatcakes. She swiped a roll fresh from the table and poured a cup of wine to take to Sir Myles.
As she swung the door to the knights’ quarters open with her foot, she almost froze in panic. She could hear the deep tones of her husband addressing a dozen or so knights. Sir Myles was among them, and when he noticed his breakfast, he motioned her over impatiently.
Holden stopped in midsentence. Cambria held her breath. But her husband’s eyes held no recognition as he glanced at her cursorily. He resumed speaking when she brought Myles his bread and wine. She briskly excused herself and scurried out the door.
After that, she busied herself loading the wagons with food, cooking vessels, blankets, herbs, and linen for bandages. Within the hour, the knights, well-armed and eager for travel, lined up five abreast before the provision wagons and awaited the command of their lord.
Holden made no speech, but cast a look of longing toward his bedchamber window that tugged at Cambria’s heart. Then he turned his mount and took his place at the head of the company.
“Forward,” he commanded. The journey had begun.
CHAPTER 10
Cambria paused in the sheltering shade of an old sycamore and wiped the sweat from her brow with her dirty wool sleeve for the hundredth time. The weather had turned uncannily warm over the last few days, but the necessity for secrecy required that she keep the miserably stifling cloak about her. Her feet were blistered from the ill-fitting shoes and the pace Holden insisted on maintaining, and she could hardly stand her own camouflaging odor of stable filth and wet wool. But the worst of it was that it seemed she’d made the trip in vain.
Sir Owen was behaving so damnably nonchalant that she almost believed she’d imagined or misunderstood that whole exchange in the knights’ quarters. It looked as if she’d gone to a great deal of trouble for nothing. But it was too late to turn back. She was committed now to the journey—every sweating, dusty, wretched mile of it.
The de Ware men made the travel particularly nauseating, filling the balmy air with boasts of their feats of prowess in battle and in bed. To her disgust, even her own Gavin knights joined in the melee. According to all accounts, of course, none could hold a candle to the de Ware brothers. When their prattle became too coarse for her blushing ears, she dropped back to join the servants. There, at least, it amused her to hear the women’s versions of the same stories, which were unquestionably more authentic and less heroic.
They stopped to set up camp as the sun sank low in the cloudless sky. A nearby stream flowed into a deep pool shaded by elms where Cambria stole away for a brief, refreshing dip. Afterward, she had no choice but to put on the same dusty surcoat, and her wet hair clung to her neck beneath her hood. But at least she’d managed to scrub away the stink of the road.
Upon her return to camp, she set to work digging wild leeks for the evening pottage. A chatty young English girl with ragged blond hair and sly eyes accompanied her. Cambria paid little heed to the girl’s patter until she mentioned the name of Holden de Ware.
“What’s that?” Cambria asked, feigning indifference.
“I said, I wonder how long it’ll be ‘fore the lord picks one of us to warm his bed.”
“One of us?”
“Aye,” she said with a naughty wink. “Annie thinks it’ll be her, and Margaret’s been struttin’ under his nose like a lone hen in a coop o’ roosters, but I’m thinkin’…”
“Isn’t the lord newly wed?” Cambria asked evenly, clenching a pair of leeks in her fist.
“Oh, aye,” the girl divulged in a whisper, “to an ice queen, they say, who won’t even let him betwixt her legs.” She giggled. “Can you imagine, not sharin’ the bed of a de Ware?”
Cambria blinked. Her back stiffened.Ice queen—was that what they called her? Worse still, was everyone privy to the sleeping arrangements between Lord Holden and herself?
“Oh, la, if he were mine,” the girl continued dreamily, stroking the long leaves of her leeks, “I’d let him flip me on my backside any time o’ the day, to feel those strong legs o’ his wrapped ‘round—“
“Enough!” Cambria commanded sharply.
The girl started at the authority in Cambria’s voice.
“Enough…leeks, I should think,” Cambria continued lamely, astonished by her own ferocity.
“Oh, aye,” the girl replied uneasily, scratching her head. “I s’pose so.” She shook the dirt from the last few leeks and tucked the lot of them into the front fold of her kirtle.
The servant’s words haunted Cambria all afternoon, and by supper, she could only nibble at her food while she watched Holden across the fire.
It was easy to see why all the maids were agog over him. Golden flame glowed upon his face, accentuating the fine bones of his cheeks and the strong set of his jaw, while the full moon’s light fell across his hair in gentle silver waves. One powerful hand rested across his bent knee, while the other curved around his flagon of wine, and as he drank, his sleeve slipped up to display the flexed muscle of his forearm. His eyes, deep and pensive, revealed none of his thoughts, as he stared into the fire. His lips parted to drink his wine, and Cambria was reminded of his kiss and the way his lips parted to drink her passion.
An astonishing wave of desire coursed through her.
She turned her back on him abruptly to gather her wits, twisting in agitation at her wedding ring. She cursed under her breath. How soon, she wondered, would he choose someone to “warm his bed”? The women already buzzed about like flies on meat. They could hardly keep their hands and eyes off of him. The serving wenches sidled up to him as closely as they could to refill his cup or offer him another trencher, giggling like halfwits and speaking coy words of flattery. All this he accepted with diplomacy, neither showing particular favor to any one nor discouraging their attentions. Still, it rankled her to watch the vulgar display.
She shouldn’t care, she knew. After all, it was common enough knowledge that English lords bedded whom they willed, when they willed, married or not. Virility was more highly prized than faithfulness. Besides, their marriage—hers and Holden’s—was purely political, wasn’t it?
