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Sir Henry had to notice Cerdic’s furrowed brow and glaring gray eyes, yet when he reached them, a merry little smile played about his well-cut lips, as if he thought they were going to celebrate his arrival.
Or was he amused by her men? Did he think himself superior? That Normans were naturally better soldiers?
To be sure, her men looked a little slovenly after waiting in the yard, and Cerdic’s hair could use a trim—but Sir Henry’s hair was astonishingly long for a Norman’s, and he was hardly dressed as befit a nobleman. He looked more like a well-to-do merchant, except for his sword.
Or maybe, she thought as she remembered his behavior in the upper chamber, this was simply the man’s normal expression when he was with noblewomen, especially one as beautiful as Giselle.
“Sir Henry, this is Cerdic, the leader of our escort and the garrison of Ecclesford,” she said by way of introduction.
“Your forefathers must have been Saxons,” Sir Henry said amiably, “judging by your hair and that battle ax.”
“I knew thou wert a Norman by thy pretty face.”
Sir Henry continued to smile, yet she could see a growing determination in his brown eyes, and his knuckles started turning white. So did Cerdic’s, and for a moment, it was like watching two powerful stags about to butt heads.
She didn’t want them to come to blows. Cerdic was her friend, and they needed Sir Henry.
“Cerdic,” she interposed, her voice taking on a slightly warning note, “Sir Henry is going to be our guest at Ecclesford.”
Mercifully, Cerdic let go of Sir Henry’s arm and stepped back.
Sir Henry laughed with apparent good humor. “Well, my brawny friend, what say we get on our way? Unless I’m very much mistaken, there’s a storm brewing and I would rather not get wet.”
CHAPTER TWO
AS A COOL AUTUMN BREEZE carrying the scent of rain blew across the hedgerows, Henry studied his companions and contemplated this rather odd turn of events. It wasn’t every day he awakened to find himself being scrutinized by unknown ladies, but as he’d told them, it wasn’t the first time he’d discovered women in his bedchamber, either. Women had been chasing after him since he was fourteen years old, which meant that the flattery and pleasure of such encounters was far from fresh, or even entertaining anymore. He had been far more annoyed than happy to discover two ladies examining him, especially after another nearly sleepless night.
However, he’d also meant it when he’d said he would have considered bedding the beautiful Lady Giselle. Indeed, he had never seen a woman more lovely. She had perfect features, pale skin with a hint of a blush on her cheeks, and lustrous blond hair. She wore a fine mantle of wode-dyed, dark blue wool, held together by a broach of silver. Her gown was fine, too, of deep blue damask and belted with a supple leather girdle. Her veil was made of soft white silk that floated about her round cheeks, and she had stood with her blond head bowed, her eyes demurely downcast, as modest as a nun in a cloistered convent.
Her sister, on the other hand…she was something completely different. She wasn’t pretty, especially when her face was pinched with anger and disapproval, and she had been much more plainly attired. She had been as strong as a young man, too, at least judging by the blow she’d struck when he mistakenly—very mistakenly—grabbed her hand. Was it any wonder he’d thought her a serving wench?
Then she’d acted as if he’d burst in on them. Her nut-brown eyes had fairly snapped with displeasure, and her full lips thinned to near invisibility.
In spite of his annoyance, which he took chivalrous pains to hide after he’d seen Lady Giselle, there’d been a moment when Lady Mathilde glared at him that he recalled bold women made the best lovers, for they were never shy to tell him what they liked, or to ask for his preferences.
Once he learned Lady Mathilde was of noble birth and the beauty’s sister, however, he quickly turned his attention back to Lady Giselle. He became mindful of the sorry state of his purse, his lack of an estate and his age. He was not so young that he hadn’t started to think of marrying and starting a family, especially with the example of his brother and sister, as well as his friend Merrick, to illustrate the joys of domesticity. Years of traveling from place to place, of being always a guest, had lost their luster, too.
His brother would surely counsel him to woo and wed Lady Giselle if he could. She was rich, she was young, she was beautiful—what was lacking? Well, one thing, but at the moment, it didn’t seem like much of a hurdle. Henry had vowed he would be in love with his bride when he wed.
His smile grew as he watched Lady Giselle’s slender body swaying in the saddle. It would surely be an easy thing to fall in love with such a beauty, and he was not without some confidence that he could arouse a similar feeling within her. He had his looks and years of experience with women on his side, and to win the love of such a woman, who would bring lands and wealth as her dowry, was surely worth whatever effort it might take.
And if he won the fair Giselle, Nicholas would finally have to say something good about his younger brother. Nor would he be able to accuse Henry of leading a wastrel existence anymore.
So why not begin the wooing? Henry thought, spurring Apollo to a slightly quicker pace until he was between the ladies.
“Have we much farther to go?” he asked Lady Giselle, giving her his most charming smile. “I’m not sure how long the rain will hold off.”
“Not far now,” Lady Mathilde answered, while her sister nudged her horse forward to ride beside Cerdic.
Whether that was due to her modesty or not, Henry was slightly disgruntled at being so obviously left behind to ride beside Lady Mathilde.
That lady immediately fastened her inquisitive brown eyes onto him and asked, “Why do you hate Roald?”
God save him, she was as bold and blunt as her sister was shy and maidenly.
“You need have no fear of offending my delicate sensibilities, Sir Henry,” she said when he didn’t answer right away. “I can believe anything of Roald.”
Despite her curiosity and her confidence that his reason wouldn’t upset her, the explanation was not a tale he cared to share with a woman. “Surely any man of honor would dislike him.”
She didn’t bat an eye or look away. “He can be charming and sly, and he has more influence at court than we will ever have. Perhaps, if you don’t hate him as much as I think, you may decide it is not worth the risk to offend him. You may even decide you should help him.”
It was an insult to even imply that he was capable of such duplicitous behavior. “I’ve said that I’ll help you, so I will—and even if I hadn’t, Roald will make no overtures to me, nor would I accept them if he did. He hates me as much as I hate him.”
“I must assume, then, you quarreled. Over a wager? Over a woman?”
God’s wounds, she made him sound like a confederate who’d gotten in a bit of a tiff. “I would certainly never wager with Roald and his cronies. For one thing, they probably cheat.”
She slid him a glance that was both shrewd and appraising, but in a complimentary way. “A woman, then?”
That was close to the truth, and yet their animosity sprang from a far different cause than she surely imagined.
Rather than endure her interrogation and who knew what other implications she might come up with, he decided to tell her the truth, if not in complete detail. “When we were both at court, I came upon him trying to force himself on a serving girl.”
As always, the bile rose in his throat as he remembered the poor girl’s terrified face, and a girl she was. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old, but he would spare even this bold, prying lady that unsettling information. “I made him let her go at the point of my sword, so Roald has no love for me.”
At first he thought he saw grim satisfaction on the lady’s features, but it was quickly replaced by a piercing, searching gaze that was as uncomfortable as his brother’s. “When did this happen?”
“Two years ago.”
“He was not charged with trying to rape her?”
Henry winced inwardly at the harsh, if accurate, word. It was disconcerting to hear a lady speak so directly of such an act. “No.”
“So although you caught him in the process of committing a crime, you let him go?”
Henry flushed, feeling a twinge of guilt at her accusation, although he’d told himself that night, and ever after, that he had done nothing to feel guilty about when he had allowed Roald to leave. “You didn’t see the girl, my lady, or hear her sobs and pleas not to call the guard. She was sure no one would take her word over Roald’s, and that Roald would say she led him on, and then her reputation would be ruined. I could not disagree, so yes, I let him go.”
The lady tilted her inquisitive head with its pointed little chin. “Many noblemen would not interfere at all, believing a servant’s body theirs by right, whether she was willing or not.”
“I don’t,” he answered with firm honestly. “I would never take a woman against her will, whether high born or low, and I have never made a woman cry out in pain and anguish, or left her bruised and bleeding.”
Lady Mathilde looked ahead at Cerdic and her sister, and he regretted speaking with such force. He should have remembered that, no matter her appearance or her manner, she was still a lady.
“That girl was fortunate you were there to help her,” Lady Mathilde said quietly, and with sincerity and compassion—a hint of gentleness and sympathy that was rather unexpected, and not unpleasant.
Inspired to be pleasant in return, Henry nodded at Cerdic at the head of the cortege. The fellow had a sword at his side and a rather fearsome battle ax strapped to his back. The shaft of his ax had to be four feet long and the head looked sharp enough to split hairs. “It’s rather unusual to see an Englishman in a position of such responsibility and trust.”
In truth, he couldn’t think of any Norman nobleman he knew who would give an Englishman that much responsibility, or consider one a friend. It had been nearly two hundred years since the Conquest, but old enmities died hard.
“Cerdic’s family was royal before the Normans came,” she replied.
She obviously admired the fellow. Henry wondered just how much, and if that extended to being on intimate terms. Not that it mattered. He had no interest in the bold and brazen Lady Mathilde. “You’re from Provence, aren’t you?” he asked, commenting on her accent.
“Yes, we were born there and lived there for most of our childhood.”
Just like the queen Henry detested, the woman he believed was spurring his countrymen to rebellion with her selfish advancement of her own family.
“The same as Queen Eleanor,” he remarked, wondering how she’d react to that.
Lady Mathilde looked as if she disliked the queen as much as he did. “If what Papa said about her family is true, it is a pity for England she is married to the king.”
That was interesting. “What did your father say about her family?”
“That the only thing they produced was beautiful women, and the only intelligence they showed was in arranging marriages.”
That was so close to the mark, Henry had to laugh. Then, because he was Henry, he smoothly said, “The queen’s family isn’t the only one capable of producing beautiful women.”
Lady Mathilde frowned.
Clearly, he had erred. Obviously, this lady would never be impressed with flattery or, perhaps, reminders that her sister was beautiful while she was not.
“My father didn’t like Normans, either,” she declared. “He said they always wanted to make war and didn’t appreciate music or art.”
He had upset her with his comment, and since he was well aware of what it was like to be compared to a sibling and found lacking, he didn’t take offense at her umbrage.
Her observation was also unfortunately true, at least in his case. He had little appreciation for art or music, except a clever, ribald ditty. Yet never before had he been made to feel that was a failing. “Someone has to defend the kingdom,” he noted.
“William was defending England when he invaded it? I must have been seriously misinformed.”
He would have found her remarks more amusing if she didn’t look so smugly superior. “Well, sometimes we get carried away—and sometimes, such men are necessary to defend estates.”
A blush colored her smooth cheeks, nearly overwhelming the few freckles on her nose.
“I meant no offense, Sir Knight,” she said after a moment, and looking not nearly so well pleased, “and I do not necessarily share my father’s views about the Normans. He did admire some things about your countrymen—Magna Carta, for instance, and how it set a limit on the king’s power. That is why Papa gave up all claim to his French estates to his elder brother, Roald’s father, in exchange for Ecclesford. Then Papa discovered that the English court is not very different from that of France. He was sorely disappointed.”
Henry couldn’t disagree. Noblemen were men first, and noble second, so they brought their ambition, greed, desires and needs to court with them.
“So Papa retired to Ecclesford and never went near the royal court again.”
That would explain why he’d never seen either of the ladies there, or even heard of them.
“And that is why we have no noble friends to call upon, you see, or I would not have to ask a stranger for his help.”
He suddenly felt like a lout for being annoyed with her, or anything she said. She and her sister were ladies in need of his aid, and that should be all that concerned him.
Maybe this would be a good time to do as Nicholas was always telling him, and keep his mouth shut.
Doing just that, he rode in silence beside Lady Mathilde, listening to the soldiers behind them laughing and talking. God’s wounds, they sounded more like men on a hunt than soldiers.
The man who’d trained him and his friends in the arts of war would never have tolerated such a lack of discipline. Henry could just imagine the things Sir Leonard de Brissy would say if he were here, and the curses that would accompany his comments.
“Ecclesford is on the other side of this wood,” Lady Mathilde remarked after they’d gone another mile or so, and the wind had started to rise. It tugged at the edges of the ladies’cloaks, and sent brown and yellow leaves swirling down the rutted, muddy road.
Henry noticed that the clouds were darker, too. He hoped the rain wouldn’t start before they arrived at Ecclesford. Chivalrous knight or not, he didn’t want to get soaked to the skin.
THE RAIN didn’t hold off and Henry was soaked to the skin before they reached Ecclesford Castle. He could barely see where he was going though the downpour, although he did note that the fortress had a dry moat that encircled it, except for the road leading to the large wooden gate, and only one outer wall. It was certainly not the most well-fortified castle he had ever encountered.
Once in the cobblestone courtyard, everyone hastened to dismount. Covering their heads with their arms, stableboys ran out to help with the horses. The animals snorted and refooted, their iron-shod hooves clattering on the cobblestones and adding to the din. The soldiers, grumbling about the weather, splashed heedlessly through puddles.
In the midst of the clamor, Lady Mathilde’s voice came clear and strong. “Follow me to the hall, Sir Henry,” she commanded as she headed toward a building directly across the yard.
He required no urging. Indeed, it was all he could do not to grab her arm to hurry her along.
It wasn’t just that his clothes and hair were getting wet; it was the smell of wet stone—a potent and vivid reminder of those long hours in that cold, damp dungeon when he feared he would be dragged out and executed at any moment. That scent made him relive the beatings and, worse than any physical blow, the sickening realization that the man to whom he had sworn an oath of loyalty and brotherhood did not trust him.
Once out of the driving rain, Henry handed his soaking cloak to a servant who appeared beside him, then shook himself like a dog, as if that could rid him of not just the damp, but the unhappy memories, too.
In a way, it worked, and as the fear and dismay dwindled, he straightened and took in his surroundings while Lady Mathilde bustled off, saying something about a chamber and some food.
The hall itself was small, although comfortably furnished with benches, stools and even chairs upon a raised dais at one end. The well-scrubbed tops of large trestle tables that would be set up for meals leaned against the walls, along with their bases. Bright tapestries depicting scenes of hunting and ladies in a garden lined the wall behind the dais to keep out the chill of the stone walls. There were metal sconces for torches along the walls, and great smoke and age-darkened oaken beams held up the slate roof.
Best of all, though, was the large fire burning in the central hearth. Henry went there at once and, sighing, held out his hands to the welcome warmth. They had put in wood from an apple tree, and the scent mingled with that of wet wool, damp linen and the moist rushes below his feet.
Meanwhile, Lady Mathilde flitted about giving orders like a general in the midst of battle. Lady Giselle disappeared up some curved stairs that led, he assumed, to bedchambers and dry clothes. Cerdic and the rest of the sodden escort came in and arranged themselves on the opposite side of the fire. Each and every one of them cast hostile glances at Henry as they shuffled their feet and jockeyed for a place closest to the heat.
Henry ignored them. He was used to scrutiny, whether speculative or hostile.
Once or twice a pretty and particularly buxom serving woman wearing a gown that seemed molded to her full-figured body passed by. She made no secret of her interest in Henry, surreptitiously and coyly smiling at him.
Henry was used to this, too, and he supposed she would come to his bed if he so desired. He didn’t so desire. First, it had never been his way, despite what many assumed, to fall into bed with any young woman who happened to catch his eye. Secondly, he had already discovered the few times he’d bedded a woman since his days in the dungeon that not only did making love not inspire sleep, it actually made him more wakeful. And last, but not least, he doubted the lovely and modest Lady Giselle would be inclined to accept him as a worthy suitor if he was bedding one of her servants right under her very nose.
As for any wayward fancies concerning Lady Mathilde and such activity, they were surely borne of fatigue and the unusual events of this strange day. To be sure, she was a bold and spirited woman, but not at all the sort he preferred. She was too audacious for his taste. While he was here, he would stay as far away from her as possible.
Lady Giselle appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Now she wore a gown of soft blue velvet that matched the color of her eyes. Her white, virginal veil was shot through with matching blue threads and held in place by a thin coronet made of intricately twisted gold. The long cuffs of her gown were embroidered with gold and emerald-green threads, the green matching the silken lining of the garment. A slender gilded girdle sat upon her hips.
She was the epitome of beauty, and as she paused on the bottom step, as uncertain as a fawn, he thought that he would surely be a fool not to woo and hope to wed her.
“Would you care to change your clothes?” Lady Mathilde asked, startling him out of his reverie.
He looked down to find her at his elbow, and with a disturbingly astute expression on her face. If someone were to tell him she possessed the ability to read his mind, he’d be inclined to believe it.
“There is a chamber ready for you now,” she added.
He was aware of Lady Giselle gliding toward the hearth and decided he wasn’t that wet anymore. “No, thank you, my lady. I’m quite comfortable.”
Lady Mathilde’s pursed lips revealed her reaction to that little lie—and then her eyes lit up like a bonfire on Midsummer’s Eve.
“Father Thomas!” she cried, brushing past Henry and rushing toward a middle-aged priest who’d just entered the hall.
