Bliss(8)
Author: Lynsay Sands

The action obviously caught her by surprise. He heard her swallow as he straightened, and her face held a rather stunned expression. Smiling widely, Hethe shifted and slid one arm around her waist, using it and the hand he still held her with to guide her to the table.

"I must tell you, my lady," he murmured as he saw her seated and cozied up next to him on the bench. "I am pleasantly surprised by all I have found here."

Her eyes widened in a sort of incredulous horror. "You are?"

"Aye. Such a fine holding and a lovely bride." He gave her one of those hot, smarmy looks he had seen other men turn on the women they loved or desired. He wasn’t sure it was working, however. The woman blinked, certainly, swaying closer, but that could be just so that she could breathe at him more effectively. He struggled on, acting the swain. "I am the most fortunate of men. There cannot be a more perfect woman inEnglandthan you."

"No?" There definitely was suspicion in her eyes now, he realized and just managed to contain a grimace. He needed to distract her. Some flowery compliments would be needed, he decided.

Unfortunately, Hethe was the direct sort. He had never bothered with such foolishness before. And wouldn’t now, he decided suddenly, an idea taking form in his head. He would insult her with compliments. Oh, this would be fun.

"No. Your hair is… yellow," he began sweetly, his smile widening at her confused expression before he added, "Like those little plants my horse tramples in my meadow."

She made a choking sound that might have been disbelief, but might just as easily have been amusement.

She was definitely distracted. The suspicion was fading from her eyes. With this success, he decided to press his attack. "And your eyes are big… like a cow’s. Only they aren’t the same color as a cow’s, of course," he hurried on as she made a strangling sound in her throat. "Cows usually have brown eyes, and yours are a much nicer – er – "

He hesitated briefly as he gazed into her eyes. They had appeared as blue as the sky outside when he had first met her. Now they seemed to be a greenish blue. "Well, they aren’t brown," he said at last.

"Really, my lord," she began, but Hethe jumped in with the killing blow.

"And your breath is as sweet as the sweetest wine."

He was quite pleased to see her face flush, a choked sound slipping from her lips before she bowed her head. He couldn’t see her expression then, but he could see that her hands were clenched in her lap.

Victory! He was just celebrating the success of his endeavor when she suddenly lifted her head again. His own gaze narrowed as he saw the fire shining in her eyes. She was mad, all right, he realized, and felt a new wariness creep over him. There was good reason for it, too, he realized, when she suddenly leaned closer and sighed gustily into his face.

"Oh, my lord, you are too kind. Do I really have breath like fine wine?"

Groaning inwardly, Hethe barely managed to keep down the spoiled ale he had drunk earlier and forced his smile to widen. "Aye. Like the finest aged wine." Old and moldering after having sat about for years, he added silently, but was pleased with how smoothly and easily he spouted his lies. He sat a little straighter. Damn, I’m good, he thought and nearly burst out laughing at the vexation that flashed across Lady Helen’s face.

She was obviously displeased. Any last lingering doubt that everything he had encountered was part of some plan she had to rid herself of him was quickly squelched. Aye, this was war she was waging. But he was going to win it. Hethe had never lost a war. A battle, perhaps, but never a war… Yet.

He had barely finished his self-congratulations when the main doors of the keep opened and Lady Helen’s servant entered with the great mangy dog that had been sitting on the steps when they arrived.

The maid glanced at where Hethe and Helen sat at the table with what Hethe judged to be trepidation, then released the wolfhound and quickly backed out of the keep, pulling the door closed behind her.

If the servant’s expression had not warned him that something was amiss, the way Lady Helen instantly relaxed and began to smile as she spotted the animal was a warning in itself.

"Oh look! It is Goliath. You two should meet, my lord." She got to her feet, smiling as the dog started toward them, then moved forward herself to meet him. "Come."

Hethe hesitated, suspecting that he would be sorry should he follow her, but his plan called for him to be as sickeningly agreeable as he could. Deciding that if she had done something foul like train the beast to bite him on command, he would break the animal’s thick neck, he got cautiously to his feet to join her.

He knew his mistake the moment her smile widened in spiteful satisfaction.

"Look Goliath! It is Lord Holden!" she cried brightly, reaching out to tap Hethe’s arm. The dog gave an excited bark and raced forward. For one brief moment, Hethe was sure she had indeed trained the beast to attack him. The dog did launched itself forward. Hethe was a bare breath away from grasping the dog’s stupid, tongue-lolling head and breaking his neck with a twist when Helen cooed gleefully from beside him. "Oh look, he likes you! Is that not nice?" Hethe stilled then and focused on what the animal was doing. Goliath was not in the midst of attacking him at all. At least, not a snapping kind of attack. His betrothed’s damned dog was humping him!

Chapter Five

Hethe was exhausted when he made his way below stairs the next morning. His plans had gone forward well enough the day before. At least they had after Goliath’s show of affection, he thought with disgust.

He had never been so angry in his life as he had been at that moment. Even now, he felt sure he would have given up his plans, gone against his nature, and throttled Lady Helen to within an inch of her life if Lord Templetun had not chosen that moment to make his way down to the great hall.

The first to spot him, Lady Helen had urged Goliath off Hethe’s stiff leg and moved quickly to the tables to take a seat, her randy hellhound settling himself at her feet. Hethe had stood rigid and furious, glowering at her back as he tried to rein in his temper.

Templetun had nearly reached him by the time he composed himself. Promising himself he would get Lady Tiernay back for her nasty trick, he had greeted the king’s man coldly, then returned to the table with a renewed determination to bury his betrothed under false sweetness. Which is exactly what he did: Showered her with compliments of a sort on her breath, the food, the ale, and all the other disgusting weapons of this battle that he was sure was meant to drive him off. In the meantime, his "compliments"

for everything else were poorly disguised insults.

The shine to her hair looked almost as if she greased it, he had claimed, watching with interest and anticipation as her eyes had flared. Her lips looked almost bee-stung they were so swollen and ripe.

Overripe, even… like fruit about to fall off a tree… How old was she?

He chuckled wearily as he recalled her outrage at that. She had not taken comments on her age well at all. It seemed she was sensitive about that subject. In truth, she should have been married and had three or four babes by now. Such was the way of things. But she was still single at twenty years and apparently feeling her age. He had almost felt guilty using it against her – especially considering the irony regarding his own young wife’s death – but then he’d realized he was scratching absently at a bite on his calf, and his guilt fled as he recalled the flea patch in his bed.

He grimaced now, thinking about it. He’d tossed the flea-bearing fur out the window before coming below after his bath, hoping that action would remove the problem, but when he had retired later and crept warily into bed, he had nonetheless found himself nearly driven mad with scratching. Whether the itching was due to any fleas still present in the bed or due to the earlier bites becoming more irritated now that they were free from his clothes and vulnerable to the open air, or because of his own imagination, he didn’t know, but it had sent him tripping quickly out of the bed. He had spent the night sleeping dressed and seated in the cracked chair by his cold fireplace, without even a linen or fur to cover him since they were all likely as flea-infested as the bed.

He had not slept well or comfortably. He was tired, his neck was sore from being twisted at an odd angle all night, and his mouth had a nasty taste to it from all that rotten food he had been forced to eat and the pissy ale he had drunk. Which had been part of his plan as well, to eat and even seem to savor the rotten food they served him. His stomach had reviled him for it ever since, threatening to rebel and generally churning in displeasure. The only consolation Hethe could find was that his feigned pleasure had first stunned, then frustrated and infuriated his adversary. Lady Helen had been clenching her hands and teeth so tightly through most of last evening that he would not be surprised if she had scourged the flesh of her palms and ground the tops of her teeth away. Aye, his campaign was a complete success, or would be if it weren’t such a torture to endure. But he had put some of his sleeplessness to good use last night and come up with a new campaign, one that promised to be less punishing… on himself at any rate.

Hethe had just reached the bottom step when the door to the kitchens opened and Lady Helen came out. Her appearance was brief. The moment she spotted him, she spun about and hurried back to the kitchens.

Hethe heaved a sigh and headed for the table where a goodly portion of the rest of the castle appeared to be breaking their fast. He knew without a doubt that she was refreshing herself with whatever putrescence she used to make her breath so bad. She had done so several times the night before, slipping away to the kitchens, only to return shortly, the potency of her breath reinforced.

At least, Hethe consoled himself, she seemed to find no more pleasure in the scent than he himself did.

He was positive he had caught a glimpse of misery on her face a time or two when she had been slow to redon her ever-present smile on her way back out of the kitchens.

Preparing himself for the onslaught of her dragon breath when she returned, Hethe seated himself beside a gorging Templetun. The man had been doing little else but stuffing his skinny face since their arrival.

That, if nothing else, reassured Hethe that the food here was not as bad as what he had been served. The king’s man appeared to enjoy it greatly. Templetun was also completely oblivious to the silent struggle being waged beneath his very nose, and Lady Shambleau was the reason. It had not got past Hethe’s notice that his fiancee’s aunt was forever busy distracting the man, and William, too, from what went on at the table around them. And she was doing a fine job of it. Templetun was kept so knotted up and William so amused by her sharp-tongued comments to the king’s man that neither of them had had a chance to catch even a whiff of Lady Helen’s putrid breath, or to notice Hethe’s insulting retaliations.

Which was all for the best, he supposed. He really didn’t wish everyone to be aware that she was so averse to marrying him that she would take such drastic measures. He had his pride, after all.

A pride that was rather tattered at the moment, he realized with some self-derision as he reached out to snag hunks of Templetun’s cheese and bread while the man was distracted talking to Lady Shambleau.

The courtier glanced back to his food just in time to catch him at his pilfering, but Hethe determinedly ignored the man’s startled glance and raised the cheese eagerly to his mouth. This was the only chance he would have for real food for the rest of the day, he was sure. Once Lady Helen returned from the kitchens…

"Oh, nay, my lord!" The cheese was touching Hethe’s lips when he heard the shriek, his tongue just catching the first hint of its sweet taste. He almost groaned aloud at the loss as she snatched away the first edible morsel he had laid hands on since arriving.

"Nay!" she went on, all happy concern. "There will be no bread and cheese for my lord. Nay. I have a special surprise for you."

"A surprise?" Hethe asked warily. He was hardly comforted to see that his reaction sparked some mysterious pleasure in her.

"Aye. I asked Sir William what your favorite breakfast was, and then I made it for you," she announced.

She made a quick motion and plopped a tray of pastries before him.

Hethe blinked in surprise at the offering. They looked perfect. Absolutely delicious. They smelled good too. And these pastries were his favorite. He glanced warily from the food to her innocently smiling face.

She had gone to the trouble of making them for him herself? For one desperately hungry moment, he allowed himself to believe that he might have been wrong about her intentions. Perhaps he had misunderstood, and she was not waging war against him. Perhaps she was truly trying to impress him!

The thought died an abrupt death as Hethe picked up one of the confections and bit into it. Or tried to bite into it. He nearly snapped a tooth off in the effort. Good God! It was as hard as a rock! It was also salty and dry, he learned as the bite he had taken began to slowly dissolve inside his mouth.

"How are they?" she asked with almost believable anxiety, then added uncertainly, "This was my first effort at baking. Cook did not like the idea of my fussing about in his kitchen, but he relented. Is it all right?" When Hethe hesitated, unable to answer because he was still rolling the bit of rock-hard pastry around in his mouth, afraid to swallow, she began to wring her hands in an excellent portrayal of an anxious betrothed. "You don’t like them! Oh I knew it was a mistake, but I wanted so much to do something to please you and – "

"I love them," Hethe abruptly lied to silence her. The woman was carrying on so, Templetun had started to glare at him for upsetting her. Which no doubt had been her plan. She was trying to make him look bad in front of the king’s chaplain. No doubt, should he not eat the damn things, she would manage to make him look like some sort of uncaring beast. Hethe made a face, then swallowed his first bite determinedly. A heartbeat later he was grabbing up the ale she had set on the table nearby. The pebble-like bite of sweet bread had got stuck halfway down his throat, and he was hoping to wash it down with the ale. The ale was warm, flat, and tasted like urine, of course, but it did the trick and loosened the bit of food lodged in his esophagus. He was almost sure he felt it splash in his stomach, rather like a stone dropping into a well.