By Arrangement Part 5

"I think not. Before Lent. The end of February."

"Five weeks hence! That is too soon!"

"How so?"

She glared at him. They had been having such a nice talk, too. He knew "how so." She marched on a little quicker, her gaze fixed on the road ahead.

He kept up by simply lengthening his stride. Finally his quiet voice flowed around her. "I said that I would step aside if this man comes, but you cannot expect me to arrange my life for his convenience. If he wants you, he will be here very soon."

She turned on him. "You are conceited and arrogant and I hate you. You are deliberately doing this to make things difficult for me."

"Nay. I only seek to avoid difficulties for myself that might complicate my business affairs. Five weeks is enough time for a man to decide that he wants a woman. I made my decision in a matter of days. A man in love should be even quicker."

He didn't think that Stephen would come, and now he had created a test for him. How dare he claim to know the heart of a chivalrous knight! How dare he compare himself to him! Stephen was as different from this mercer as a destrier from a palfrey. The same animal, but different breeds with different duties.

"Five weeks, my lady," he repeated firmly. He glanced up at the sun. "Now we must ride back. I have a meeting this afternoon."

He brought up the horse and lifted her up. She kept her back very straight all of the way home to Westminster.

In the back courtyard they found Lady Idonia sitting by the wall. She rose at once and came toward them.

David dismounted and brought Christiana down. He turned to the guardian. "You decided to take some air, too, my lady? The day is fair, is it not?"

Lady Idonia did her best. "You should not have taken Christiana out with her illness. Her dizziness was most severe."

David slung an arm around Christiana's shoulders. It was a casual gesture, but it very effectively kept her from bolting. "Your solicitous concern for my betrothed moves me, my lady. But I have something to say to Christiana in private. Perhaps you would wait inside the entrance for her."

Idonia fl.u.s.tered in response to this blunt dismissal, glanced sharply at Christiana, and stomped off. David dropped his arm and turned to her. "I will visit you next week."

Stephen would come soon, but not that soon. She really did not want to spend more time with David. It felt like a betrayal of her love. "That is not necessary," she said.

"It may not be necessary, but for your sake it is prudent. You expect your lover to come, but what if he does not?"

"He will come."

"And if not?"

His insistence irritated her. "What of it?"

"Then in five weeks you wed me, my girl. Just in case, shouldn't we spend this time getting to know one another? It is what betrothals are for."

But I am not really betrothed, she thought, eyeing him obstinately. Not in my heart or mind.

"Christiana, if you do not want to meet again until the wedding, that is how it will be. Yet think about it, girl. Going to bed with a stranger will not bother me at all, but you may find the experience distressing."

Her mouth fell open in shock at this blunt reminder of the marriage bed. Memories of herself with Stephen flew rapidly through her mind. He had not been a stranger, and she quickly relived the shock of his ferocious pa.s.sion, the crushing insistence of his kisses, the almost horrible intimacy of his hand on her nakedness.

She stared up at David de Abyndon, noting the frank and open way that he watched her. It was cruel of him to make her think about this and face the possible conclusion of this betrothal. All the same, her mind involuntarily began to subst.i.tute him for Stephen in those memories. She was appalled that it had no trouble doing so and that the strange feelings that he summoned tried to attach themselves to the ghostlike fantasy. She shook those thoughts away. The whole notion was indeed distressing. And very frightening. Five weeks.

"Am I supposed to wait upstairs for you to come and *bid me to attend'?" she asked sarcastically.

"Let us say that I will come on Mondays. If I cannot, I will send word. If you are ill again, send a message to me."

She nodded and turned toward the door. She wanted to be done with this man today. She wanted to cleanse her mind of what it had just imagined.

He caught her arm and pulled her back. With gentle but firm movements he clasped her in an embrace. A surging desperation claimed her. She remembered the betrothal ceremony and she knew, she just knew, that it was vital, essential, that he not kiss her again. She struggled against his arms and almost cried out for Idonia. As his head bent to hers, she twisted to avoid him. His lips found hers anyway and connected with a grazing brush that wasn't even a kiss. She felt that same, warm soothing lightness again and again on her cheek and brow and neck. In spite of her love for Stephen, in spite of her anger at this man's intrusion into her life, she calmed beneath the repeated caress of his mouth as ripples of sensation flowed through her. Her awareness dulled to everything but those compelling feelings.

When he finally stopped, she wasn't struggling anymore. A little dazed, she looked up at him. The perfect planes of his face appeared tighter than usual, and he looked in her eyes with a commanding gaze that seemed to speak a language that she didn't understand. She knew that he was going to kiss her and that she should get away, but when he lowered his mouth to hers, she couldn't resist at all. It was a beautiful kiss, full of warmth and promise. It deepened slowly and he held her head in one hand, the other arm lifting her into it. The waves of sensation flowed higher and stronger, carrying her toward a delicious oblivion.

He released the pressure on her mouth and took one lip, then the other, gently between his teeth. A sharper warmth shot down the center of her body. It was a stunning quiver of pleasurable discomfort that seemed to reach completely through her. Less gently, he kissed each pulse point on her neck, and it happened again and again, each time stronger, the compelling discomfort growing. He lifted his head and looked down at her, his mouth set in a hard line with the lips slightly parted. He looked gloriously handsome like that.

"You make me forget myself," he said, his fingers stretching through her hair. Their surroundings slowly intruded. Her position, arching acceptingly into his embrace, suddenly became apparent, too.

Horrified, she abruptly disentangled herself. He let her go. With a very red face she hurried to the door. Lady Idonia waited there. She looked up sharply. " *Send Idonia to save me,' " she mimicked. "I sat out there almost an hour, worried for you, although why I don't know, since you are marrying the man. Then you return and what do I see? Keep that up, girl, and there will be no need for a wedding at all."

Christiana blushed deeper. A profound sense of guilt swept through her. She loved Stephen. How could she be so faithless? How could she let this man kiss her like that? Even if he forced her to it, how could she let those feelings undo her so outrageously?

She followed Idonia up the stairs, more confused and frightened than she had been on her betrothal day. This was wrong. She must never let it happen again. She must be sure that she was never again alone with this merchant.

At the second-level landing, she paused and looked out the small window to the courtyard below. David was just mounting his horse to leave. As he began riding away, a movement at the end of the courtyard caught her attention. A man stepped away from the building and toward David's approaching horse. David stopped and spoke with the man for a moment, then made to move on. But the man followed alongside, speaking and gesturing. Finally David dismounted. He tied his reins to a post and disappeared behind the building, following the man.

Christiana frowned. They had been some distance away, but she felt sure that she recognized the man. He was the French-speaking diplomat who had pa.s.sed her alcove in the King's pa.s.sageway the morning after she had met David.

Chapter 4.

David stood at the threshold between the solar and the bedchamber and studied the woman whom Sieg had just brought upstairs. She was still an attractive lady, but thirteen years take their toll on anyone. He hadn't realized back then how young she must have been. No more than twenty-five at the time, he would judge now. Still, he would remember her anywhere.

She hadn't noticed him, and he watched her glide around the solar, fingering the carving on the chairs and examining the tapestry on the wall. She touched the glazing in the windows much as Christiana had done that first night.

He would not think about Christiana now. If he did, he suspected that he might not go through with this. He had already spent more time the last week thinking of those diamond eyes than about the carefully planned harvest of justice that he would reap this afternoon. The last thing he wanted now was the thought of a good woman making him weak with a bad one.

The woman's face looked paler than her hands, and he could tell that she used wheat flour to make it so. An artful touch of paint flushed her cheeks and colored her lips. If he gave a d.a.m.n, he would find a kind way to tell her that the coloring was a bit too strong for the honey hair that had begun to dull with age. He suspected that this was one of those women who looks in the mirror a lot but never really sees what is reflected there.

He shifted his weight silently but it drew her attention anyway. Amber cat eyes turned and regarded him. He saw the brief scrutiny and then the slow relief. Aye, he thought, if this woman wh.o.r.es for a man, she prefers him young and handsome. She continued looking at him and he noticed the total absence of recognition.

"David de Abyndon?" she asked. Her eyes narrowed and a thin smile stretched her mouth.

"Lady Catherine. I'm sorry that I could not see you sooner."

She misunderstood and, flattered, smiled more naturally.

He gestured and she joined him at the doorway. When she saw it was a bedchamber, she glanced at him, reproving him for his lack of subtlety.

She entered slowly and again she took in the details of the room, calculating their value. Time and again her gaze rested on the large tub set before the hearth. It had been brought in by the servants before David dismissed all of them for the afternoon. If they wondered why he wanted it here and not in the wardrobe where it belonged, they hadn't said so.

It had been filled with water, and more water was heating by the hearth. David lifted the buckets and poured them into the tub.

She watched him with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Perhaps I came too early."

"This is for you."

"You thought that I would be unclean?"

You are so unclean that all of the water in the world would not cleanse you. "Nay. But I remember how much you enjoy baths and sought to indulge you."

She frowned and looked at him more closely. A spark of memory tried to catch flame, but he watched it die.

"My husband a.s.sumeda"

"I know what your husband a.s.sumed. But we do it this way or not at all." He leaned against the hearth wall and waited.

A little fl.u.s.tered, but not too much so, she began to remove her clothing. She carefully folded the bejeweled surcoat and placed it on the nearby stool. The beautiful cotehardie followed. Rich fabrics. He had no trouble calculating how many of her husband's debts were devoted to her wardrobe. She untied her garters and peeled off her hose. He noted her lack of embarra.s.sment. He was by far not the first stranger she had stripped for.

The shift dropped to the floor and she looked at him boldly. He gestured to the tub and she stepped in with clear irritation.

She settled down. She was childless and her body was still youthful. Her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s bobbed in the high water.

"Well?" she asked.

"Your husband sent you here to ask something of me. To negotiate for him, did he not?"

She gestured with exasperation at the tub.

David smiled. "I only do this to give you every advantage, my lady. I remember that you negotiate best when you are thus."

Again that scrutiny. Again the flame of recognition that died before it caught fire. She became all business.

"My husband says that you have bought up all of his debts."

The man had ama.s.sed debts to merchants and bankers over the last few years. When he had resorted to borrowing from one to pay another, when the financial market in London had realized that he tottered on the edge of ruin, David had bought the loans at a deep discount. He had not even gone looking for today's justice. It had simply fallen into his lap, one of Fortune's many gifts to him.

"He needs time to repay them."

"They are long overdue, as I have explained to him."

"He thought that you might be more reasonable with me. I have come to ask for an extension. The properties have been less productive of late, but that should improve."

"They are less productive because they are neglected and mismanaged. Already the ones that I hold have improved."

"The loans were made with the promise that the property you hold now would be returned to us."

"Only if the loans are repaid." He paused. "I think that we might be able to work something out about the loans and the property, however. Is there anything else that you require?"

Her face lightened. It was going better than she thought it would. "Aye. We need a further loan. A small one. As a bridge until things work out."

This husband placed a high value indeed on his wife's favors. "You are asking me to throw good money after bad."

"You will be repaid in full."

"Madam, your husband gambles. You are extravagant. Both vices are rarely conquered. I will consider the extension of the old loans, but in truth you will never repay them. Why would I now give you more?"

She looked at him boldly and a small smile formed on her tinted lips. Slowly, expertly, she shifted in the tub so that he had a full view of her body.

The years fell away. He was in another chamber standing in front of a younger woman. She was a frequent visitor to the shop, but when she had come this day, David Constantyn had not been in. She bought expensive cloths and paid with a tally as was the habit of such women, but then insisted that the young apprentice deliver the goods that afternoon to her manor in Hampstead where the tally would be made good.

He had gone. Like others before him, he had innocently ridden the five miles north to Hampstead. She had received him in her chamber, lying in a tub much as she did now. Pretending to ignore his presence, she had demanded that her servants open and examine the purchases while he waited. All the while she had bathed herself, slowly and languidly, occasionally looking at him with a challenging stare that dared him to react to her nakedness.

He did not. He was randy enough at sixteen and not inexperienced, but he held his body in check. At first his dismay and shock helped him. His knowledge of females consisted of the happy servant girls with whom coupling was a form of joyful play. Instinctively he knew that this woman was nothing like that and that she tempted him to something other than pleasure.

But as she continued displaying herself, it was anger that kept him in control. He turned away from her. He did not like playing the mouse to this cat woman. He resented her using her position and degree to humiliate him.

Finally he could tell that she grew angry too. She addressed him directly and began to renegotiate the price of the goods. She pursued the subject a long while, refusing to pay the whole tally, demanding his attention. Finally, he had to look at her, and as he did she raised one leg to the side of the tub and exposed herself.

He lost control then, but not in the way that she expected. He let his face show what he thought, but it was not the desire she demanded. He looked down at her and let her see his utter disgust before he walked out.

He had almost reached the road before her men came and dragged him back. They tied him to a metal ring set in the trunk of an oak tree in the garden. Before the lash fell, he looked over his shoulder and saw her honey hair at a window.

"You do not remember me," he said. "But then, there were a number of us, why would you remember one?"

Over the years, they had found each other, the boys now grown to men whom she had ensnared in her web. The woman's unhealthy appet.i.te was not discussed openly, but it was not unknown. It was why David Constantyn had never let his apprentices serve her or deliver goods. But he was the one who had not played her game as she wanted it, and so the lash fell harder on him than those others whose only crime had been to show the l.u.s.t that she demanded and then punished while she watched from her bower window. He had been flogged once in Egypt, but it was this first time that had scarred his back. His youth had been beaten out of him that day. He regarded her impa.s.sively, watching her study him hard. This time the spark of memory caught hold and her eyes flamed with recognition. Her gaze slowly swept the room as she calculated her danger. She collected herself.

"You were compensated," she said coolly.

Aye, he had been compensated. When he staggered back home and his master saw his condition, that good man had done what no other master or father had done. Going to the city courts the next day, he pet.i.tioned against this woman and forced the mayor to address the issue. After a long while, the husband had been made to pay fifty pounds. David had refused to touch the money.

"The others were not. And it is not a debt that money settles anyway."

She glared at him angrily before calming herself. She glanced at the bed and then eyed him with a question.

"Aye, that too. But if you want this extension, I have other terms. I will extend the loans in return for the Hampstead manor and property, and for one hour of your time."

"The Hampstead lands belong to me, not my husband. They were not pledged as surety for any loans."

"I know that they are yours. In return for them, however, I will in fact forgive the loans, not just extend them." He smiled. "See how well you negotiate? Already I have conceded much more than I had planned."

He saw her weighing certain ruin against the property. If he called the loans, she would have to sell it anyway.

"Why do you want that house? Why not another? Are you going to burn it or something?"

"Nay. We merchants are very practical people. We rarely destroy property. It is a very beautiful house and I have admired it. I will have need of a country home near London soon. I hold no grudge against a building."

"And the hour of my time?"