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The woman acted somewhat flustered, and the voice he had found so sensuous and soothing in the depths of the netherworld now was edged with anxiousness.
“I am called Rory.”
“From whence do you come?”
She asked the question so casually she almost caught him in her trap. He had already opened his mouth to reply when a misty memory told him that he must keep the name of his village a secret if he valued his life.
“I come from across the sea,” he said non-committally.
“Does your home have no name?”
He watched her face brighten with hope, then cloud as he continued. “It is not a large estate, but I am satisfied with my lot.”
“Is that where you have taken my...the children?”
He watched as her eyes shifted away from his steady gaze and knew she was wondering just how much of her little soliloquy he had heard.
“The children were taken to the village, where they will be well kept,” he assured her.
“They were well kept here,” she challenged, “and we want them back.”
“There is little hope of that.”
“We could pay...”
He lifted his hand to silence her. “It is not money we need, but the children themselves. Youth to repopulate our village. Our women are barren.”
“Surely a few years without the birth of a child should not cause brave men to resort to destroying the families of others.”
“It has been more than a few years. It has been almost a decade. The plague struck and took over half the village. Men, women, children, babes in arms. None were spared. Those who recovered rebuilt their lives, took in the orphaned children and remarried, but there was no issue. Within the past months the last surviving children have grown to adulthood. There was nothing left but to steal the children our women cannot bear.”
“You had no right to take my child or the children of my serfs.” Serine met his eyes now and challenged him openly.
“We had no choice.”
“You have taken the heir to Sheffield. When my husband returns from the Crusades he will appeal to the king, and the brave men who have fought to free the Holy Land from the infidel will take up our cause and destroy your village.”
“By the time they could discover where the village is located, your children will be grown men and women, and will fight to defend what they have inherited. Think you the son of a serf would not rather live as a thane’s heir with plot and property to be inherited rather than come back here to serve as a serf?”
Serine had no answer for that. Her breath caught in her throat and she found herself unable to answer. If what this man said was true, the majority of the children would be far better off if they stayed with their captors.
“What you say holds merit, but my son is heir to Sheffield and does not need your charity. He is the son of a landed knight and a lord in his own right. I demand that you return him to me.”
Rory raised his eyebrows. This woman had spirit, but he had expected no less. Any woman with the courage and cleverness to create a diversion that confounded dozens of Celts and sent them packing would have spirit as well as beauty.
“Will you send a message to your overlord to tell him that you live?”
Again her question seemed innocent enough, but Rory sensed the underlying threat. He could not help but admire her clever persistence as she continually rooted for the name of his village.
“When I am strong enough to travel I will give thought to your request. Until that time it behooves you to keep me well or you will never see your son again.” With that he turned his face toward the wall.
The woman was quick and sharp. In his weakened condition it was only a matter of time before he made a slip and told more than was prudent. His mind raced forward to the time he would spend with this woman, who interested him as well as piqued his admiration.
He empathized with her over the loss of her son. He had lost a son to the plague. Perhaps he would add his voice to hers and petition for the boy’s release. One child could not be so important to the survival of the village, and as that one child was the son of a knight, and heir to an estate, it was very possible that the English king would, indeed, come to the aid of his vassal and retaliate against the Celts.
Rory nestled down into the soft furs that encased his body. His thoughts for the woman were as soft and warm as the sense of well-being. The pain had subsided and he could feel strength and energy begin to surge through his body.
He heard a voice murmur and thought to give the Lady Serine reassurance that he would, indeed, be party to her quest. Easing himself onto his back, he opened his eyes to find himself staring into the malevolent glare of a one-eyed crone. Suppressing a gasp, Rory decided the fever must have come on him again, for the nightmares had returned.
Shutting his eyes tightly against the aberration, he determined to sleep until it disappeared.
* * *
It wasn’t until Rory awakened the next morning that he first realized something was amiss. His face felt clean and he could feel the air touching his skin. Still half asleep, he ran his hands over his cheeks. The next moment he emitted a bellow that resounded throughout the building.
“My beard! You’ve stripped me of my beard!” he shouted as Serine ran to his side with Old Ethyl in her wake.
“I did but clean you up a bit,” Serine told him. “Your beard was matted with blood and I could not tell whether or not your neck was still swollen with all that hair in my way. Besides, you look better without it.”
He could not know how much better he looked, Serine thought as she allowed her eyes to feast on him. His hair, clean now, curled in a mass of midnight ringlets about his face, falling to his shoulders like an ebony cloud. Each curl an invitation to run her fingers through it and let the curls trap her hands and hold them against his head while she memorized his face.
Her reverie was broken by his continued harassing over her action.
“Be still,” Old Ethyl said threateningly, “else my lady’s work will have been in vain, for I’ll bloody you again.”
“But she cut away my hair and stripped me of my manhood!” he protested.
Old Ethyl snorted in derision. “How was she to know?” she asked. “Most men don’t wear their manhood on their chin.”
“That’s not what I mean!” he argued. “I have worn my facial hair since the day I reached manhood.”
“Then it’s high time you did without it for a bit,” Old Ethyl assured him. “You have no need of it here. By the time we are rid of you it will have grown back, I’ll vow.” She turned to Serine, ignoring the man’s sputtering. “As soon as our visitor calms down, I will leave you for a while, unless you wish to go in my stead.”
“You go, Ethyl,” Serine said, temporizing. “I will stay with our...guest.”
“As you will,” Old Ethyl agreed. “I prefer good fresh English air to the fumes of an angry man.” Since her lady would not go among the people to learn their mood, it was up to Old Ethyl herself to do so. With a nod of her head, Old Ethyl took her place near the door, determined that she would make certain the man posed no threat to Serine before she left for the village.
Rory paid the old woman little mind. His anger and his attention focused on Serine, who looked at him with an expression of disbelief.
“I cannot see how the loss of your beard and mustache could be of such importance,” she ventured.
“It is a matter of honor,” he blustered. “A man is judged by his facial hair in my country.”
Serine shrugged her shoulders and moved away from his bedside before answering. “I now see the difference between your world and mine, for here a man is judged by his sons.”
The instant the words left her mouth she would have recalled them, but it was too late.
Only the weakness from his wound and the infection that had so recently invaded his body kept Rory from attacking her—his infirmity, and the fact that Old Ethyl had nocked her arrow and stood ready to release it with deadly accuracy should he move toward her lady.
Realizing the depth of her mistake, Serine eased the man back against the pillows. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I spoke out of turn. I did not realize that your facial hair was an indication of your virility. Feel free to grow it back, and I promise I will do nothing to rid you of it whether you are conscious or no.” Her eyes sought out Old Ethyl and she indicated that she felt she had the matter well in hand, and Old Ethyl was free to go.
“It is too late,” Rory lamented. “In my country a man is known for his mustache. It is as recognizable as his nose. It might be years before I could grow another that could match the one you have so blatantly destroyed.”
Serine narrowed her eyes. The man was beside himself. It would almost be humorous had it not been that his anger might stop him from telling her where he had taken her son. She wanted his goodwill and would never have done anything to irritate him. At least, not until he had given her the information she sought.
“At least we have found a common ground,” Serine told him. “You have taken my son and I have taken your beard. Perhaps it is time that we talked of how we can make the recovery of both of our treasures as easy as possible.”
The man sighed deeply and relaxed. He studied her for a long moment. “My hair will grow back, regardless of what you do to prevent it, but there is nothing either of us can do to bring back your son. By now he is far away.”
“If he is well gone there should be no problem with your telling me where your people have taken him,” she challenged.
“And in doing so invoke the distinct possibility of my own death,” he retorted. “Feverish I may be, but my mind has not deserted me. You cannot make me believe that you would keep me alive for one more hour should you learn the location of your son.”
Serine chose not to answer. His words held a good deal of truth, but not all. At first when she had brought him to Sheffield she had cared little as to whether he lived or died, her only thought being to keep him alive until he could be made to tell her of Hendrick’s whereabouts, but somehow she had become accustomed to his presence and looked forward somewhat to the sound of his voice as it became stronger. Even if he told her where to find Hendrick at this very moment, she would be hard put to turn him over to her overlord, let alone give the order that would cost him his life.
Rory took her silence as confirmation of his words and turned his back on the slim woman who carried the strength of Celtic iron in her backbone. She was a hard woman who cared for naught but her son, and he admired her for it in spite of himself.
In truth, he had no one to blame but himself. Had he not paused to dally with the water-slick nymph he had discovered on the water’s edge, he would have been well away. And some of the children would have disappeared without a trace. Now he owed his life to Serine and he knew that when the time came for him to show his appreciation for her ministrations her one demand would be that he take her to her son.
He took a deep breath and flinched against the raw pain that still troubled him. He knew Serine and her witch-woman, Ethyl, had worked long and hard to save his life. Even more than the wound had been the onset of the fever and the poisons that had invaded his body. He doubted that the women of his village had the knowledge to save him had he been able to escape.
He owed Serine his life. It was true. And to pay that debt he would take her with him to Corvus Croft and arrange for her to speak to Guthrie. But beyond that he would promise nothing, and nothing was most likely exactly what she would get for all her trouble. For the goal of the Celts had been to bring children to their village, and thanks to the efforts and cleverness of this woman those children had been few. That her son was one of those who had been successfully taken was unfortunate, because there was little hope that the council would agree to give the boy back to his mother.
“Since you have saved my life, I am willing to consider laying your plight before Guthrie, my overlord.”
“I shall go with you,” she said flatly, “and bring my son back with me.”
“I guarantee nothing,” Rory said. “Only that you will be given a fair hearing.”
“Fair! What do you call fair? You have stolen our children and raided our village and you dare speak of fairness?”
“If you can heal me and return me to my village in peace, you will be heard. My people did not steal your children out of spite or villainy. It was due to desperation, and no one would have been harmed had you not come after them.”
If Serine wanted to be with her son she would have to agree to stay in Ireland.
Rory watched as she moved around the room, and imagined her moving thusly through the streets of his village, through the halls of Guthrie’s fortress and, finally, through the rooms of Rory’s own home. He found the thoughts pleasant. Perhaps he would urge her to stay once she realized it would be impossible to obtain the release of her son.
For all that she had cut away his beard he found himself unable to maintain his initial anger. It seemed almost as though there was an unspoken duel between them, with rules yet unmade, and it challenged him to try to guess what she would do next as she strove to regain possession of her child, unaware that fate, and a woman’s tongue, would take the matter out of their hands.
* * *
“I tell you, our Lady Serine was brave as any man could have been,” Hildegard, the alewife, boasted to the knight and two foot soldiers who had come to partake of her wares. “Stole those children back and hoodwinked the Celts in the process. They never knew what hit them, they didn’t!”
“We heard your lady’s own son was stolen,” one of the men said as he quaffed his ale.
“That’s true,” Hildegard agreed. “So sad for the poor lady after risking her life and saving so many. But there’s rumors from the castle that she captured a Celt and hopes to learn from him where they’ve taken her son.”
The knight wiped his hand across his mouth. “Clever woman,” he remarked. “Old Sheffield was always the lucky one. He should be coming back any time now. I vow he’ll make short work of the Celt. The man will beg to tell Sheffield anything he wants to hear.” A toothy smile split his face. “A man learns many things on crusade. How to torture a man until he begs to talk. How to make love to a woman.” His eyes swept over Hildegard’s generous figure and his hand slipped around her in an intimate embrace.
“You tell me nothing I don’t already know,” she said as she extricated herself. “My man’s been on crusade before, and I find myself more pleased to see him each time he returns. However, should you decide to persist, Sir Knight, I’m sure he would be happy to take time from showing me his newly learned arts of love to showing you his well-earned reputation as a soldier to be reckoned with.” She smiled as she said the words, but the threat was there, loud and clear for all to hear.
They all laughed together, but the spurned knight’s eyes narrowed spitefully as he moved away with his companions. “Country wench,” he sneered. “She’ll wish she’d considered my proposition before I’m finished with her and her brave, Celt-loving lady.”
He motioned to his companions. “Come, lads! We have an appointment to meet with Lord Baneford. Unless I miss my guess, he’ll pay good coin to learn that there is a Celt lurking around his lands.”
The men swung off through the village, almost colliding with the one-eyed crone who stood at the side of the road.
* * *
To heal, one must spend a great deal of time abed, and, although Rory healed far more quickly than he was willing to let on, he whiled away his empty hours by watching Serine as she went about her duties.
It occurred to him that she was not a great beauty, and had no outstanding feature on which to base her attractiveness. Yet there was a graceful loveliness about the woman that would not be denied. The more he watched, the more he wanted. The stronger he became, the more the demands of the flesh tortured him until he reached the place where he actually welcomed the appearance of Old Ethyl.
In truth, Rory had not responded to a woman as he did to Serine since the plague had taken his wife from him, and had not thought to again. Still, the sound of Serine’s husky voice sent currents of pleasure through his body, and the touch of her hand was enough to send him into a fever.
She talked of little other than the return of her son, and he wondered how she would react if she suspected the plan he had devised to take her to his village and hold her there through her love for her child.
Surely once she became accustomed to Corvus Croft she would learn to love it. It was a beautiful place with lush green fields and sparkling blue streams. He doubted not that the children the Celts had spirited away had already fallen in love with their new home. It took very little time to change one’s allegiance, for in all honesty, Rory was more than a little in love with Serine. He watched her closely. Her movements were graceful but positive. There was no room for doubt within her. And he wondered, once again, what she felt when she thought of him.
He knew that there were times her heart quickened when she caught him watching her. He could see the color that tinted her cheeks and the pulse pounding in her throat. How he longed to press his lips to that pulsing point. To feel it pound beneath his lips as he drank in her scent, her warmth, her sweetness.
As if in answer to his silent supplication, she passed his cot, reaching out to touch his forehead in her journey. When she hesitated, as though reluctant to release the gentle contact with his face, Rory reached up and removed her hand. He inhaled the scent of marigolds that was uniquely her own and brushed her hand across his cheek. Without conscious volition, he pressed his lips against her palm and buried his mouth in the softness. Then, with a groan, he swept the salty moistness with his tongue.
His fingers held her wrist and he felt her pulse jump and quicken. She did care! She responded to him just as he did to her.
He felt her other hand move into his hair, and tensed himself should he have misread her and she decided to pull him away. Her hand clenched, then lost itself in his thick locks. He pulled her to him as he gave in to his desires and sought out the pulse beat hammering in her throat. With a deep moan he closed his mouth over it and felt it drum against his tongue. He knew his time was limited. Serine had given in to the madness of the moment and he had taken her completely off guard. It was only a matter of seconds before she would realize what was taking place and put up her defenses. But one moment of heaven was worth a lifetime of darkness.
Without giving propriety another thought, Rory cradled her in his arms and gently, gently covered her lips with his as he drew out her sweetness, inhaling her, tasting her, luxuriating in the touch of her body, warm and soft against his naked chest.
Then Serine’s hands drew him closer, demanding that he give all that his kisses promised. He felt her open to him and was lost in the depths of her mouth. He barely restrained himself from crying out at the overwhelming passion, so long denied, that surged forth and blossomed in all its frightening glory in the arms of this beautiful, determined woman, who could never belong to the likes of a Celt.
The world swam as Rory’s kiss demanded all that Serine could give and promised even more. It mattered not that this man was her avowed enemy. That he had stolen her child and would not tell where he had been taken. All that mattered was the touch of his lips, the caress of his hands and the burning heat of his body against hers. All that mattered was that she had waited for this moment, for this kiss throughout all the watchful days and sleepless nights. Longed for this moment throughout her life without knowing for what she longed. And now that it had come, she had not the strength, nor the will, to push either the man or the moment from her embrace. His kiss was all she had dreamed it would be and though she burned through eternity for this moment of weakness it was beyond her ability to care.
A soft cry escaped her lips as he buried his face in the soft fragrance of her breasts. A surge of desire shot through her body as swift and true as one of Old Ethyl’s arrows, and most likely as deadly. For Serine felt that she could not live without experiencing the wonder of Rory’s love, of his beautiful, masculine body, his sensual lips and his unquenchable passion.
Incapable of denying him or herself the love they so greatly desired, Serine was swept to the boundaries of surrender. Unknowing, uncaring of anything other than the man in whose arms she lay. She seemed to be spiraling upward toward the bright light of fulfillment when Rory withdrew his lips, holding her close for several minutes until their breathing assumed some semblance of normalcy before he let her go.
She moved from the haven of his arms and stood before him, slightly disheveled and very disappointed.
“Forgive me,” he said, unable to keep his eyes from the pleasures he had so briefly known. “I did not mean to force myself on you.”
Serine opened her mouth several times before she found her voice. “Then why did you do so?” And why did you not continue? she wanted to ask.
“I lost my head, and in the heat of the moment forgot that there are two situations that stand sentry between us.”
“Those are?” She knew, but she must hear him say the words. The words that would both damn and free her.
“You have a husband, and I have your son. As long as it remains so, there can be nothing but lust between us. And I want more than a fleeting moment of passion from you, Serine. I want your love, just as, I believe, you want mine. But love should give happiness, and between us we can offer each other naught but pain. For this ill-favored love we have found for each other is indeed a bitter brew.”
