His Lady's Ransom

Ian suppressed a wince as she probed the tender flesh with one finger, clucking under her breath. A glancing blow from a sword had slipped under his mailed coif and sliced through the padded leather gambeson he wore beneath. The wound was not deep, but long and ragged.

“Well, ‘twill leave an ugly scar, but ‘tis healing cleanly, so I won’t resew it.”

She sighed, and Ian saw again the concern that had bracketed her forehead ever since she’d come to his chamber to give him the blue wool surcoat lined with vair that she’d lovingly fashioned for him in his absence.

“Don’t fash yourself, Lady Mother,” he said. “Will’s but seventeen, after all, and won his spurs only six months ago. He’s just feeling his manhood, paying court to his first ladylove.”

Lady Elizabeth shook her head. “You’ve not seen him since his knighting. I tell you, Ian, Will’s smitten with that bitch.”

Ian’s brows rose at the uncharacteristic harshness of his stepmother’s words. Known as much for her gentleness as for her charity to the poor, Lady Elizabeth rarely spoke ill of anyone, much less a woman she’d never met.

“So Will’s smitten,” Ian replied with a slight shrug. “It won’t harm him to gain a little experience with such women before he takes his wife.”

The hurt flooding Lady Elizabeth’s brown eyes made Ian realize his mistake at once.

“William’s not like you, my son,” she said, with only the faintest hint of reproach. “He has not the sophistication for the games played by the women of the king’s court. Nor the endurance to enter into them so enthusiastically.”

Ian bit back a smile. When he attended his younger brother’s investiture some six months before, he’d discovered that the handsome, irrepressible young knight had already gained a formidable reputation for endurance among the ladies. But Ian knew better than to share that information with Will’s doting mother.

“You worry needlessly, my lady. Will is young enough yet to enjoy his new status as knight, and man enough to know his responsibilities to his betrothed. He but dallies with this woman.”

Elizabeth sighed. “At first I, too, thought ‘twas naught but a boy’s infatuation. But of late William’s every letter speaks only of his Madeline de Courcey. She’s bewitched him, I tell you.”

The genuine distress on her face told Ian that she was more worried than he’d first thought.

“Sit down by the fire while I finish robing,” he told her with a smile. “Then we’ll thrash this out.”

When he joined his mother beside the fire a few moments later, Ian stretched his long legs out and heaved a sigh of contentment. Sweet Jesu, it felt good to be home again.

“Will you have wine?” Lady Elizabeth asked.

At his assent, she nodded to the maidservant who crouched beside the fire. The girl wrapped a thick pad around the poker buried in the coals. Plunging the hot iron into a pitcher of wine, she let the liquid sizzle for a moment. The scent of precious cinnamon and nutmeg filled the air.

She poured the mulled wine into a silver cup and handed it to Lady Elizabeth, her eyes respectfully downcast. She handed another cup to Ian, but there was more invitation than respect in the look that accompanied the wine. Her gaze traveled the length of Ian’s outstretched frame, then back up again, and a smile tilted her lips.

The girl’s bold assessment earned a scowl from Lady Elizabeth and an answering smile from Ian, who ran an equally appreciative eye over her pale hair and well-padded figure. He watched the saucy maid’s hips twitch as she left the room. On the instant, the lethargy wrought by his bath and this quiet moment by the fire receded, and Ian revised his plans for later that evening.

“Do you know this Madeline de Courcey?” His mother’s voice pulled his eyes and thoughts from the enticing rear.

“I met her once, years ago,” he responded. “She was just a maid then, a plain little thing with big eyes and skinny arms. She didn’t strike me as having any special witching powers.”

“Since then she’s buried two husbands,” Elizabeth retorted. “Both died within a twelvemonth of marriage to the woman,” she added darkly.

“Her first lord had some sixty years under his belt when he took his child bride, as I recall. ‘Tis no wonder he expired.”

“And her second? He was young, and most robust.”

“The second met his fate on the battlefield, leading an insane charge against a vastly superior force. The fool didn’t wait for reinforcements.”

“And why would any knight attack against such overwhelming odds?”

“Maybe because he had more courage than brains,” Ian replied with a shrug, having once served with the well-muscled but incredibly thick-skulled young knight.

“Or mayhap because the king’s son arranged the order of battle when the man objected to his interest in his wife,” Lady Elizabeth suggested. “’Tis common knowledge that this Madeline de Courcey has Lord John under her spell.”

Ian knew that the king’s youngest son, for all his show of knightly presence in the recent wars, had little say in the order of battle. King Henry, the second of that name, directed his forces with the same demonic energy and efficiency he brought to the governance of his vast dominions in England and on the Continent. Ian knew, as well, however, that the Lady Elizabeth would not be deflected by logic when the interests of one of her brood were at issue. Not wanting to offer her the discourtesy of an argument, he took a sip of his wine and smiled lazily.

“When I saw William last, he spoke only of the battles he’d been in, and his knighting. He said nothing of this Lady Madeline, nor of any lady in particular.” “William met her shortly after, when she once again became the king’s ward, upon her second husband’s death.”

“What, does she reside in the king’s household, and not at one of her dower estates?”

Lady Elizabeth nodded. “’Tis said John himself begged the king to bring her back. Will has written of nothing but the accursed woman since. He raves about her wit, and her charm, even her seat on a horse!”

Ian smiled inwardly at the pique in his mother’s voice and made a mental note to speak to his brother about the detail he included in his letters in the future.

“You think I exaggerate?” Lady Elizabeth sighed. “Here, read for yourself.”

She pulled a much-worn parchment from the folds of her robe and passed it to him. Leaning toward the flickering fire, Ian scanned his brother’s all-but-illegible script. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t hold back a grin at the flowery, poetic words Will used to describe his ladylove. This atrocious poetry would cause his brother to writhe in embarrassment when he had a few more years and a few more women to his credit.

Ian’s grin slipped, however, when he read the last paragraph. In it, Will compared Lady Madeline to his betrothed, and found the young girl he’d been promised to since early childhood sadly lacking.

“Just so,” his mother commented, seeing his expression. “Surely William cannot want to break his betrothal! His father arranged it before he died and pledged his most solemn oath.”

“Nay,” Ian responded, his tone thoughtful. “Will doesn’t take his honor so slightly that he would disavow a sacred pledge made in his name.”

“But he’s never expressed the least dissatisfaction with his betrothed before. She’s a gentle, well-mannered girl, and will make him a comfortable wife. As many times as we brought them together as children to make sure they would suit, they’ve come to know each other well.”

Ian saw the worry clouding Lady Elizabeth’s eyes and put aside his own disturbing thoughts. Taking her hands in a warm hold, he slipped into the familiar role of protector and head of a vast network of responsibilities. It was a role he’d worn for some ten years and more, one that sat easily on his shoulders.

“Don’t fret, Lady Mother. Will’s but sampling his first taste of courtly love. If it eases your mind, I’ll speak to him when I go south about fixing the date of his marriage. The prospect of assuming full management of his own lands and those of his wife should distract him from this Lady Madeline.”

Lady Elizabeth turned her face up to Ian’s, her lips lifted in the glowing smile that had won his father’s heart so many years ago and was yet undimmed by time. “Thank you, my son. I knew I could depend on you to take his mind from that…that female.”

Ian drew her up and kissed her cheek. “Aye, you can depend on me.”

He led her from the lord’s chamber and down the flight of stone steps to the great hall, his eyes thoughtful. For all his easy assurances to Lady Elizabeth, Ian wasn’t as confident in the matter as he’d let on. The tone of Will’s letter disturbed him. It held less of the gushing moonling and more of a man caught in the throes of passion than Ian wanted to admit, even to himself.

Moreover, he much disliked the idea of Will being enthralled by a woman rumored to be mistress to the king’s son. The Angevins loved and hated with equal passion, and John was as much a spawn of King Henry and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine as any of their hot-blooded brood. The youngest of their eight children, John was also the king’s most beloved son—the only one, Ian thought wryly, who had not yet rebelled against his father’s heavy hand. ‘Twould not do for Will to earn John’s enmity, and mayhap the king’s, by toying with the young lord’s mistress.

As Ian escorted Lady Elizabeth across the great hall, he returned the greetings offered by passing servants and the vassals assembled to welcome him home and hear the news. Surrounded by the familiar noise and clatter of the feast ordered in honor of his homecoming, Ian gradually relaxed. The habit of caring for his large, boisterous family was so ingrained that he had no doubt of his ability to extricate William from this Lady Madeline’s coils, if he found it neces sary to do so.

“Ian!”

He loosed his hold on Lady Elizabeth just in time to catch a flying bundle of robes and long honey-colored braids.

“Oof!” He made a show of stumbling back with his laughing, squealing younger sister in his arms. “You’ve gained at least a stone since last I was home, Cat. And at least two score new freckles.”

Lady Elizabeth watched with an indulgent smile as Ian teased her youngest chick, a budding, blushing maid of some ten summers, then turned to take an equally lively greeting from her next youngest.