“Well, it’s hardly surprising that King Edward would believe you, when Harrington could not even name any other as the father. The man is hardly rational.”
Even though his stomach was knotted with hatred and tension, Raynor nearly laughed aloud, albeit bitterly. To say Nigel was irrational was most surely a gross understatement. If Stephen only knew the truth of why Harrington kept the child’s parentage to himself. “I fear,” he said, “that there is no mystery here. Louisa’s child is my own. I regret that I was not able to marry her before she died, because our child’s parentage would not have been in question had I done so.” His brown eyes darkened to walnut in sorrow as he remembered how he had tried to convince Louisa to marry him so that her stepbrother would no longer hold sway over her. But she had refused, saying Raynor had a right to some happiness of his own. Just taking Willow in and claiming her as his own had been more than Louisa had the right to ask. Raynor’s voice was barely audible as he finished. “She died before I was able to convince her otherwise, shortly after the child was born.”
Stephen laid a hand on his arm. “I am sorry, my friend. This trouble with Harrington must make it very difficult for you.”
Bronic spoke up, his Nordic features hard, his blue eyes narrowed. “The man is crazed. Would that this were his throat.” He clasped his large warrior’s hands together tightly.
Raynor sent him a warning look. He did not wish anyone to suspect there was more to the story than they told. If they displayed the depth of their hatred too openly, any reasoning person would begin to wonder at its cause.
And no one must ever find out the reason for Raynor’s fear for Willow. Not even Bronic understood the true circumstances of Willow’s parentage. His vehemence stemmed from loyalty to Raynor.
All Raynor said was “Harrington must follow his own course, as I must mine. Mayhap the king’s decision today will set him on a more constructive path. Now he must realize that he cannot take Willow from me.”
“You are a good and true father, to take the child though she be a bastard,” Stephen told him. “Harrington has indeed tried to besmirch you there, as well. He lays it about that you are the one who would have the little girl for her inheritance.”
Raynor stiffened. It was true that once he had been a poor man. His father had mismanaged and overspent in an effort to give his greedy mother all she wanted. After Raynor inherited the lands and title, she had tried to control and manipulate him in the same manner. But even at fourteen he had been too strong-willed for her to control him. No woman would destroy him as Mary Warwicke had his father.
The years since his father’s death had seen him turn the properties around, and while he was not the wealthiest of the king’s barons, neither was he the poorest. He knew that since Harrington had spread the lie, many would continue to believe he had taken on the responsibility of raising Willow because of her lands. But he didn’t really care, not if it kept them from looking further.
Besides, Raynor controlled her lands only as her guardian and overseer. He took no payment of any kind for looking after her interests. Everything would go to her in the event of her marriage or her twenty-first birthday.
Stephen interrupted Raynor’s thoughts with a clap on his back. “Enough of this, my friend. All has gone well for you today. Now you can be about some more pleasant sport. I have not seen you in years, and would hear what you have been about.”
Bronic nodded, looking about the crowded antechamber with ill-concealed discomfort. “But we should find some more comfortable spot for the discussion to take place.”
Raynor eyed his friend in agreement. He had no love of the court and its crowds. In fact, he would not be comfortable until they were well on their way back to Warwicke on the day after tomorrow. “I stand with Bronic. We are sharing a room with several other knights, but me-thinks they would not mind us bringing you along, Stephen. I'm sorry we cannot offer you better hospitality, but Windsor is full to overflowing, even with all the new building the king has had done in the past years.”
Stephen laughed. “Do not apologize. I know the circumstances well. That is part of why I have a house in the village.”
They started from the chamber with Raynor in the lead.
Raynor stopped as a woman moved between him and the entrance. He paused, his head tilted to one side as he looked at her. She was quite beautiful, with her creamy skin, high cheekbones and long-lashed sapphire eyes. And she seemed somehow familiar, though Raynor could not think why.
“Elizabeth,” Stephen called out from behind him. His tone was sheepish. “I had forgotten you were here.”
The woman did not deign even to glance Stephen’s way. “Obviously.”
Then he remembered. It was Clayburn’s sister. He had been introduced on his way in to see the king, but he had been of little mind to take note of anything then. Even a woman as lovely as Elizabeth Clayburn.
His eyes met hers, and for a moment a strange sort of current passed between them, making his belly tighten pleasantly. But Raynor pushed it aside. This was his friend’s sister, a noblewoman. And Raynor had no intention of dallying in that direction.
His lips twisted in a self-derisive grimace. Though he was guilty of nothing where Louisa was concerned, he had just admitted to being so. He had no intention of becoming entangled with Stephen’s sister. Even if he did see a stirring of warm challenge in her lovely eyes when she looked at him. Long ago he’d decided no woman was to be trusted in his life. Raynor’s father had loved his wife blindly, giving up every shred of self-respect to please her. And if that was love, Raynor wanted no part in it.
With that thought firmly in mind, Raynor stepped aside so that Stephen could speak with her.
He pretended not to notice how her gaze lingered on him as Stephen told her where they were going and made arrangements for her to be taken home.
Chapter Two
Late that night, Elizabeth waited in Stephen’s bedchamber for him to come home.
She sat in his chair bedside the fire, a cup of warmed wine in one hand, drumming the fingers of the other in a steady rhythm against the seasoned wooden arm. She was still fuming over the way Stephen had sent her home, as if she were some child to be gotten out of the way. He had no right to treat her thus.
But truth made her admit, at least to herself, that Stephen was only a small part of her irritation. Most of it was directed at herself, because of her own reaction to Raynor Warwicke. Whatever had gotten into her?
Any number of men would fall upon their very knees to have her notice them. But she, fool that she was, looked to a man who acted as though he could not even see her.
But hadn’t there, just for a moment, been a spark in his eyes, when she’d stood before him as the men were leaving the antechamber? Yes, she was sure there had been more than indifference in his gaze as it slid over her. He’d covered it so quickly that another woman might not have noticed. But Elizabeth was not another woman. She responded to even the slightest of reactions in the baron of Warwicke. When he’d looked at her that way, seeing her as a desirable woman, her body had answered in kind. Elizabeth had been left achingly aware of him, the tanned flesh on the wide column of his throat, the very deep rhythm of his breathing. There was something about Lord Warwicke that made her feel alive as never before.
Why, she did not know. But Elizabeth was going to find out. She couldn’t just let this feeling go, this strange singing in her veins that she had heard spoken of but had never thought to experience.
And she meant to enlist her brother’s aid.
She simply had to see the baron again, speak to him, find out whence these stirrings came. What manner of man was he, to engender such feelings inside her? She knew he was handsome, with his dark eyes and unruly hair,