The Conquest Read online

  Tearle put the gown on the bed, then took her hand and led her to sit down on a bench before the fire. He took a beautiful tortoiseshell comb from the top of a small table and gently began to comb Zared's hair.

  "I can do this."

  He pushed her hands away. "You and I will not be together long. Do not deny me what pleasure I can find."

  She didn't answer him but closed her eyes as he gently combed the tangles from her hair. As a child she had never combed her hair; only when she grew older and began to notice the handsome young men who trained with her brothers had she taken a comb to her hair, and then she had merely dragged it through, tearing at the knots.

  "Such a beautiful color," Tearle said. "And as soft as thistledown." He ran his hands up the back of her neck, then over her scalp, massaging it. "There is no silk to compare with your hair."

  When he stopped caressing her head she opened her eyes and saw him standing between her and the fire. There was a warmth in his eyes that she hadn't seen before. "It's only hair," she said gruffly, trying to hide the fact that his words had pleased her.

  "Will you get dressed now?"

  Zared looked at the gown lying on the bed. Surely she could figure it out by herself. Before she could decide what to do Tearle came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders and began sliding the robe off of her. Instinctively she clutched it to her.

  "I will play the lady's maid tonight," he said. "I will help you with the fastenings." He smiled. "Unless you'd rather I called Margaret."

  "No, I…" She swallowed. "Perhaps I could have supper in this room."

  "Zared," he said sternly, "you are going to have to leave this room at some time. You cannot stay in here forever wearing only that one robe. If you do not want me in here, I can call a maid."

  He was her enemy but at least he was familiar to her. She had spent days in his company. She released her hold on the robe, and he took the robe from her. Zared snatched the gown off the bed and held it in front of her body.

  "Now," he said with the sound of efficiency in his voice, "over the head. No, not that way, the other way. Here, turn this around so the front is this way."

  Zared held the gown to her, clutching it so that it did not gape across her bosom. Never in her life had she gone into the light of day with her breasts unbound, and putting on the dress—her breasts without their painful binding—made her feel rather strange.

  "Hold still," Tearle said from behind her as he drew the laces down the back of the dress tightly together.

  Zared was used to tight lacing, but it usually covered her breasts. This tightness was lower, pulling in her waist. She looked down and saw that her breasts were quite exposed in the deep V of the neckline. She put her hand up to cover herself.

  Tearle finished with the lacing then turned her around to look at her. "I think it is a perfect fit. My mother was always very slender." He stepped back to look at her. "Put your hand down. Go on, hands to your sides."

  Zared obeyed him, but she didn't look at him until his silence was more than she could bear. Slowly she lifted her eyes to look at him. He wore an odd expression that seemed to make her body grow warmer.

  Tearle cleared his throat and dragged his eyes away from her. "Shall we go down to dinner?" He held out his arm for her to take.

  Zared took two steps toward him and promptly fell face forward. She would have hit the floor except that Tearle caught her.

  "It's the train," he said.

  Zared looked behind her and saw that the dress had a great deal of fabric flowing out the back of it. How, she wondered, did one walk with that dragging?

  "I think you throw it over your arm," Tearle said, and when Zared gave him a look of disbelief he tried to demonstrate. "I think you do it like this."

  She watched as he took a few mincing steps, then made a sweeping bend as though reaching for something. He flipped the imaginary object over his arm. Zared did everything that she could to keep from laughing. This was the Black Knight? This was the mysterious knight who felled all comers?

  She gave a little frown. "I still do not understand. Will you show me again?"

  "I told you that I'm not completely sure how it's done, but the ladies seem to do it with ease. Now walk like this."

  She watched as he did his imitation of a lady taking tiny steps.

  "Then bend—do this gracefully—pick up the train, and drop it over your arm. There, that wasn't so difficult, was it?"

  "I shall try it." Zared took two steps, trying to imitate his walk, then she bent and purposely missed catching the fabric of the train. She looked up at him. "I think you will have to show me again."

  He sighed. "All right, but watch carefully this time. Walk. Bend. Lift. Drop." He demonstrated each word, then turned back to her. "Now you try it."

  Again Zared made a mess of trying to toss the train over her arm, and she managed to conceal her smile at his frown.

  He moved to stand behind her, then put one hand about her waist. "Walk," he ordered, then he bent forward, forcing her to bend also. He took her right hand in his. "Now pick up the damned thing and throw it over your arm."

  Zared again managed to drop the train. She stepped away from him and gave him an innocent look. "I seem to be a fool at this. Perhaps you should try on the gown and show me that way."

  The look on his face made Zared's laughter erupt.

  "Why, you little minx," he said, lunging for her.

  With a motion that was almost expert Zared grabbed the train and flung it over her arm before she began to run from him. At first she began to run in earnest, immediately making for the door, but he reached it before she did and put his arm across it so that she couldn't open it. For a moment she was afraid of him. Had she teased her brothers as she had him, making fun of their masculine abilities, they would have made her pay. But when she looked into the eyes of the man she saw that he was amused by her.

  She ran from him, holding her train with one hand and slipping around the bedpost with the other. At first it seemed odd to her that she knew he could catch her but that he didn't. She ran toward a table and put it between them, and when she dodged one way he blocked her exit, so she went the other way, and he blocked that way, too. She smiled, and then she laughed and moved back and forth as quickly as possible. But he was always faster.

  Zared pushed a chair to the floor and made a leap across it, and he reached for her, but she ran before he could catch her. She ran toward the window seat, and when he made a lunge at her she gave a squeal of laughter and jumped to the floor. He was inches behind her, and twice he caught her, but his hands were loose on her body, and she could easily escape him.

  By the time she jumped on the bed she was breathless from laughter and from running, and from something else that she didn't quite understand.

  He caught her on the bed. He rolled her about, tickling her until she was dying of laughter, his hands running up and down her body.

  "Do you beg me for forgiveness?" he asked, his hands at her ribs. He stopped moving his fingers as he looked down at her. She was on her back on the bed while he sat over her, his thighs straddling her hips.

  "Never!" she said, but she was smiling. "I will never beg forgiveness from a Howard."

  She had meant no harm by what she said—she hadn't even thought of the meaning of her words— but his face lost its good humor, and he moved off of her. She caught his arm before he left the bed. "I meant no…" She didn't know how to finish her sentence.

  He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, then he turned and looked at her. Zared held her breath. Actually, she thought, he wasn't a bad-looking man at all. She smiled at him.

  He grinned at her, and Zared thought that perhaps he was the opposite of bad-looking.

  He grinned more broadly and made a lunge across the bed for her. "You'll be the death of me," he said as he caught her in his arms.

  Zared squealed, her arms together, then stopped moving and looked up at him. His eyes were soft, and she didn't