The Mistress Of Normandy by Susan Wiggs Page B

time, the impregnable magnificence of the château. Only now he looked at it, not as his future home, but as a fortress to be breached. He calculated the height of the walls and determined the route he’d take when he came for his bride.
    With a bit of charcoal he made a sketch on parchment, noting the locations of the sentry towers, the number of windows in the keep proper, the merlons in the battlements.
    The idea of sneaking into the château and abducting an unsuspecting woman filled him with distaste, but he had no choice. Gaucourt’s presence made an overt attack ludicrous; the idea of returning unsuccessful to England was unthinkable.
    The clopping of hoofs on the causeway snared his attention. Muscles coiling, he pressed back against a thick tree trunk and watched a small contingent of men-at-arms emerge from beneath the barbican. At their center rode a woman.
    The Demoiselle de Bois-Long.
    It could be no other, for she perched on her saddle with an air of haughty authority and was robed in a gown of sumptuous red. King Henry’s gifts of cloth and jewels should please her, Rand thought. She favors rich dresses.
    Feeling both detached and uneasy, he studied the woman who would become his wife. Her face was milk pale; she had ripe red lips, sleek black hair, and fine-drawn brows that swept high above eyes too distant to discern the color. Beauty, not warmth, was the chief impression Rand gleaned from his glimpse of the demoiselle. She was Burgundy’s kin, he reminded himself. Why look for kindness in her?
    She reined in and snapped an order to one of the men. When he made no move to respond, she gave a little screech, produced a stout riding crop, and laid it about the man’s shoulders until he dismounted and adjusted her stirrup. Then they were off again, crossing the causeway and turning east along a dirt road.
    As he stared at the narrow back and raven locks of the demoiselle, Rand felt each breath like a harsh rasp in his throat. This woman, with her hard red mouth and cruel white hands, was to be his wife, the mother of his babes. Not only was he condemned to asserting his control over a French keep; now he knew his wife had a temper he’d have to tame.
    Troubled, he glanced up at the westering sun. I’ll come in the late afternoon each day, and wait until the hour of the woodcock’s flight. Lianna’s words drifted into his mind, pulling him to the place he knew he should not visit.
    * * *
    Lianna visited the glade with less and less frequency, for her hopes of meeting Rand again had begun to wane. He’s a knight-errant, she told herself. His home is where he pitches his tent and tethers his horse.
    But the spring-soft afternoon and the terrifying goal she’d set for herself brought her back to the glade. Bonne’s words haunted her: Men. They spread their seed like chaff to the wind. At last Lianna was ready to admit that Bonne was right; Gaucourt was right. She needed an heir to prevent her uncle from tampering with her marriage to a Frenchman and to prevent Gervais from inheriting Bois-Long.
    Walking through the long stretch of woods, she pondered her plan. Surely Rand, if she could find him again, would plant a child inside her, and Lazare would be too proud to deny the babe was his own.
    So simple, she thought. So cold-blooded. So damnably necessary. She wondered if she had the courage and callousness to bring her attraction to Rand to its natural conclusion.
    She did. But not by virtue of her courage, which she doubted, nor by virtue of her callousness, which had been soothed to tenderness by Rand’s loving hands. She was motivated by more than the simple need for an heir. She wanted Rand to make love to her, to fill the void that had gaped like an open wound in her heart all her life. He’d awakened the dreamer within her, given her the will to reach out with both hands for the love that had ever eluded her.
    Since she was accustomed by now to finding the glade empty, her heart hammered in