Page 48 of Bold Angel
He was pondering that and had nearly reached the stairs when a disturbance near the door sent several pages running in that direction.
“A messenger has arrived, my lord.” Geoffrey strode toward him. “He brings word from the king.”
Ral nodded and followed the young blond knight toward the scantily clad runner. Tall and nearly gaunt, the man clutched a long wooden staff he used to vault streams, and a short split cane that carried the message. From the end of the cane, the runner removed a roll of parchment fixed with the king’s wax seal. Ral accepted it along with the messenger’s greetings and crossed the short distance to Richard.
“See that the man is fed and given a place to rest,” Ral commanded one of the servants, handing his steward the scroll. Richard broke the seal and began to read.
“William sends his regards,” he said. “He hopes all is well and sends you and your lady wife his wishes for a happy and fruitful marriage.”
“Get to the point,” Ral said.
“The lands you’ve requested have once more been denied. De Montreale has also been pressing for the grant. William says he must remain impartial.” Richard glanced up from the parchment, his forehead marred by a frown. “The king has offered the land as bounty, my lord, to whichever of you brings him the head of the Ferret.”
“Damn!” Ral’s fist slammed down on the table,making it shimmy and dance. “William knows how important that land is. Stephen wants it only because I need it to feed the people of Braxston. By Christ, it could mean their very survival.”
Richard looked him in the eye. “Then you will merely catch the Ferret before de Montreale.” He smiled. “I’ve no doubt that you will.”
Some of Ral’s tension eased. “You’re a good man, Richard, and in this your words must prove true. Tomorrow, we return to the forest—and the day after that and the day after that—until the Ferret is captured.” He clapped his steward on the back. “We won’t fail in this—we cannot afford to.”
***
Caryn bent over the mortar resting on the table before her. Plying the heavy stone pedestal against the dried mint and mustard, cloves, rosebud, and leek, she ground the items into a fine dark powder, then emptied the substance into a small stoppered vile.
It was another of Isolda’s potions, the making of a powder that fostered lust and acted as a strong aphrodisiac. Caryn had secretly collected strands of Ral’s hair, a scrap of fabric worn next to his skin, and dried blood scraped from the shoulder of his jerkin, items the healing woman had fashioned into a figure of clay and buried at the crossroads beneath a waxing moon.
Together the items were meant to form a powerful love philter that Ral could not resist.
Caryn sighed. So far, Isolda’s charms and spells had done little to help her cause. Nor had Bretta’s lessons in seduction. Marta had forced them together whenever she had the chance, but Ral had been gone from the castle most of the time, in desperate search of the outlaws. When he did return, he was so weary he fell into an exhausted slumber before the fire pit, often too tired to eat.
He had even given up sleeping with his leman, takinginstead a place in the solar. Caryn figured he must be weary indeed and wondered what little chance her untutored seduction could have when even Lynette’s vast experience seemed to fail her.
Caryn picked up the vial and walked to the door. Ral had returned that afternoon, disgruntled and depressed that he had once again failed to discover the whereabouts of the outlaws. His dark mood was hardly the one she would have chosen, but finding the brigands might take months. Ral’s hunger for a woman would return long before then. If Caryn wanted to be that woman, she couldn’t afford to wait.
She headed down the passage toward the stairs, saying a quick word to Marta along the way and receiving a smile of encouragement. Once she reached the dais, she would slip Isolda’s potion into Ral’s wine, make pleasant conversation during the meal, then attempt to charm him as Bretta had instructed.
Mayhap this time she would succeed in stirring his interest. Mayhap he would carry her upstairs and…
Caryn flushed to think of what the buxom kitchen maid had told her would transpire in the marriage bed. She had tried to hide her amazement, but Bretta had seen it and laughed.
“Ye must not worry, milady. ’Tis a woman’s lot in life, and ’tis hardly a burden. Ye’ll find no more pleasant hours than those ye spend beneath ye brawny lover.”
Caryn stiffened. It had never occurred to her that Bretta might have known Ral in that way. “Do you mean that.… are you saying—”
“Nay, milady, ’tis not of your man I speak, but of the deed itself.” She winked and flashed a bawdy big-toothed grin. “’Tweren’t for fear o’ me belly growin’ round, I’d be tossin’ up me skirts far more often.”
Caryn felt the heat burning into her cheeks. Focusing her questions on how to attract a man instead of what would happen once she did, she listened as Bretta spokeof smiling and touching, how to walk seductively, and the use of subtle innuendos to signal a man of her interest. Since everyone believed Ral preferred his leman to his wife, Bretta understood Caryn’s motives and heartily approved.
“Ye husband belongs in ye bed, milady, not in that o’ his coldhearted strumpet.”
Still, belonging there and getting him there seemed two far different things.
***
Ral sat beside Caryn on the dais, hearing her soft feminine laughter, feeling her shoulder brush his as she bantered lightly in his ear. She smiled sweetly, seemingly amused at something he said, working hard to amuse him in return.
Her movements were womanly, seductive, their meaning as unmistakable as they had been throughout the ages. In the past few days, Ral had seen his lady wife use them often, mastering the gestures far too easily to suit him, stirring a response in his body and a desire he could barely contain.
Caryn’s breast brushed his arm and the blood pumping hotly through his veins grew thick and sluggish, his heartbeat slowing, throbbing, matching the heavy ache that had settled in his groin. Had Caryn been the woman of experience she pretended, she would have seen through his mask of indifference, seen the hunger for her that he worked so hard to disguise.
