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Lady Madeline held out her open palm and he could see something glinting in the waning light. “This is my brother’s cloak pin,” she said quietly. “It was my father’s. He would never leave this behind.”
Dafydd recalled the younger man who had fallen and realized it might have been Roger de Montmorency. He had assumed the gray-haired man would be the famous knight. “Your brother,” Dafydd said firmly, “he will not be dead.”
She eyed him warily. “How can you be so sure of that?”
“Too good a fighter, he is. Hurt, maybe, but those others were not good enough to kill him.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Said it, haven’t I?”
“You are not a Norman.”
It was a statement, not a question, so he did not try to deny it.
“You are not a priest, either.”
Again there was no point to lie. He did not look like a priest, and he knew it.
Her eyes narrowed even more and she backed away. “Are you a pilgrim, at least?”
“Yes.” It was close enough, and he didn’t want to frighten her. He took a step toward her, willing her not to be afraid of him. He hated Normans, but she was a woman first. “I am going to Canterbury,” he added for veracity.
“Then you are going in the wrong direction,” she observed suspiciously.
It was all he could do to keep from smiting himself on the forehead. He should have kept in his mouth shut! In truth, all he knew about Canterbury was that it was holy and somewhere in England. “Other places first,” he replied after a long moment while she watched him expectantly. “I give you my word that I will not hurt you.”
“I must find Roger. Will you help me?”
“No.”
His blunt refusal both startled and upset her, but he couldn’t help that. Better she should know right now what he meant to do, and what he would not do.
“But you must!”
“No.”
“You’re not going to leave me here! What if those thieves come back?”
“I will take you to help.”
“Help? What help?”
“There is a manor, back there.” He gestured back along the road and wondered if he was making another foolish mistake offering to help her. Still, she was quite right. He could not leave her where she was.
“I suppose I should be grateful for that,” she muttered, managing to sound arrogantly ungrateful. “But I must find Roger.”
“To get to your wedding?” he asked impertinently.
“Yes, to get to my wedding,” she answered defiantly, as if she thought he would doubt her urgency.
Before he had any time to wonder at her reaction, there was a loud crack of thunder and a torrential rain began to pour down on their heads. The horse whinnied and shied nervously. Dafydd managed to grab hold of the dangling reins before the roan ran away. Clutching the animal’s bridle, he hurried to her and swiftly, and without so much as a word, lifted her onto the saddle and started to run through the mud, along the road and then through the trees toward the ruined farm he had noticed before. He soon reached it and hurried to the one hovel that still stood intact. The wide doors were held on by one hinge each and some of the timbers had fallen down, but the roof looked sound enough, and the horse would fit inside, too.
He paused to shove open the door and Lady Madeline quickly dismounted, immediately dashing inside. He followed, leading the horse through the entrance.
He scanned the tumbledown building composed of cob and thatch. A few parts of the roof were leaking, but otherwise it was quite dry. It smelled of hay and animals still, and he saw that the large room was divided into two by a partition.
He led the horse farther inside, surreptitiously making certain that the pack on the back of the saddle had not been disturbed.
She stood at the door, looking out at the steadily falling rain. “I must find my brother,” she announced again. “As soon as the rain ceases.”
He glanced at her, a little regretful that the vulnerable woman had disappeared, to be replaced once again by an arrogant noblewoman. She drew off her wimple. A cascade of long, thick, curling hair fell down her slender back nearly to her waist. God’s blessed blood, he had never seen hair like that. What would it feel like, what would it look like spread about her naked body?
Without the cloth bound around her face, her beauty was even more apparent. Her cheeks looked smooth and soft, her eyes clear and bright with intelligence, her lips inviting. It was no wonder Sir Roger would try to hide such beauty in the drab robes of a holy order.
Beautiful she was, yet there was something about her mouth suggestive of a strong, stubborn will. She had the proud carriage and demeanor that belonged to the conquering Normans, too. She had probably had her way in everything all her easy life. She would make some Norman a fine wife and together they would make a lot of little Norman children to control the land.
Dafydd brushed the horse with quick vigorous strokes. She might just as well be a nun for all he would ever have to do with her or her kind.
“I think the rain is getting worse,” she said accusingly, as if he were responsible for the weather. “We may have to stay the night.”
He pulled off his wet dalmatica and spread it out to dry. He had slept in worse places, and in worse weather, too. At least they had a roof over their heads.
He untied his pack and set it at his feet. Reaching inside, he pulled out a flint with which to build a fire. There were the remains of a round hearth in the other part of the building. He gathered some of the straw and a few pieces of wood that lay in the corner, all of which was extremely dry and caught easily. He grabbed his bundle and found the pieces of bread he had hidden in his bed during the last few days before he left the monastery.
She turned and looked at him as he bit into one of the small, round, stale loaves. The only noise disturbing the silence was the sound of the rain. It was late now, and the darkness outside had as much to do with the setting sun as it did with the clouds. Soon it would be too dark to travel, especially over wet roads.
As she stood there illuminated by the flickering flames of the fire, he became very aware that he was half-naked and alone with her.
She came toward him, eyeing him warily. Clearly she was no longer certain what kind of man he was, whether pilgrim or soldier or outlaw or peasant. Suspicious, yes, but not afraid, and he was pleased, although he knew it should not matter.
Still, she was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and he enjoyed the play of the light on her face and the intimacy of the moment.
She sat on the dirt floor opposite him. He handed her a piece of the bread and saw with some amusement that she was not pleased to be offered stale bread. Surprisingly, however, she said nothing, but started to eat, averting her eyes demurely as if he were a suitor and she a coy maiden being wooed.
That thought amused him greatly. He could not imagine a Norman wooing a woman, or certainly not properly, with eloquent words, or a love song, perhaps, and kisses begged in the dark shadows of a summer’s night. It was a pity, in a way, because he thought this woman might deserve such a wooing.
He had never actually wooed a woman himself. His life had been one of battles and skirmishes and hiding in the woods, his times with women frenzied moments of passion with a willing wench who thought it the height of excitement to make love with a rebel. He could barely remember most of them.
He noticed Lady Madeline was shivering and wondered if he should suggest she remove her damp clothes. An interesting idea, that.
“I have to find my brother,” she repeated defiantly, fortunately calling his thoughts away from contemplation of her as a woman to the necessity of helping her.
“Not on my horse,” he said.
Even her pout had a certain loveliness about it. “I assure you, whoever you are, that you will be suitably recompensed for that beast and your trouble. My brother is very wealthy. And very powerful.”
“Your betrothed is wealthy and powerful, too, no doubt.”
“Yes.”
Despite the lift of her shapely chin, he thought she was not quite sure about that. Interesting. Unimportant, but interesting.
He held out another crust of bread and Madeline gingerly lifted it from his fingers, then sat down as far away from the fellow as possible while remaining as close as she could to the heat of the flames. To her chagrin, the nearly naked man grinned at her. A devilish grin it was, too, and she wondered how she could ever have surmised that he had taken holy orders.
She looked away, determined not to look at his face anymore, or that horrible scar on his shoulder, or wonder how anyone could survive to bear such a mark. She wished he would put his robe back on.
She forced herself to think about what to do next. She had no idea how to proceed in this particular, strange and foreign situation. For the past ten years, every moment of her life had followed an established pattern and been lived among the same people whose habits, likes and dislikes were as well-known to her as her own. Then, there had been the news of her impending marriage, Roger’s arrival and her abrupt departure from the convent, the attack, her rescue and now here she sat, afraid to be so close to this muscular stranger who was not Norman, yet more afraid to leave this fellow’s presence and go out into the rain and the unknown.
But should she, perhaps, be so ready to believe his reassurances about Roger? The outlaws had outnumbered them, after all. Perhaps Roger was lying wounded somewhere, bleeding and in pain.... Just because she had not been able to convince him to at least postpone the wedding until she had met her future husband did not mean that she had ceased to care for her one and only living relative.
Indeed, if Roger was not hurt, why had he not come to find her? Surely he would be searching for her, if he was able to. Even if he cared for her only as an instrument to fulfill his plans. Or especially if he considered her in such a light.
She suppressed a sorrowful sigh at the notion that time and training could make her brother so coldhearted. Why, this man sitting across from her, this total stranger, was showing more concern for her than Roger had.
Who was he? Where had he come from? Why had he helped her? Some things about him she could guess with some certainty. She knew he was Welsh, despite his attempts to mask his accent, for there had been Welsh servants at the convent, which was rather close to the borderlands.
He must have been trained as a soldier, for he wielded his sword with considerable skill. He might be a rebel, or someone who saw the chance for ransom, but he did not try to bind her, or curtail her movements in any way. If she wanted to, she could run away at any moment.
She could ask him, of course, but he would probably answer with that disquieting stare, or even worse, that grin.
He caught her looking at him and pointed to a pile of straw in the corner. “Go to sleep.”
“Where?” she asked cautiously. Thus far he had proven trustworthy, but she was a woman and he was a man. A young and vital man.
He gestured again at the pile of straw. “There.”
“No.” She shook her head decisively. After all, they were alone here, and he was half-naked.
“Not touching you, me” he said, obviously and quite honestly insulted by her reluctance.
“There might be...rats,” she confessed with a very real shudder. All her life she had had a horror of the small furry creatures, and she was absolutely certain this shell of a building was a rat’s idea of paradise. Where there was one rat, there would be hundreds. And she thought it a very good excuse.
He started to laugh, a deep, rolling sound that was surprisingly pleasant to hear. With appropriate catlike grace, he rose quickly, grabbed his sword and swung it through the straw. “No rats.”
He crouched back down beside the fire, laying the sword beside him. She saw him wince as he did so. “Does it hurt, your shoulder?” she asked without thinking.
“Not now.” He gazed at her intently, and for a long moment, she simply gazed back, trying to read his dark eyes and quite determined that he could not outstare her. The only person whose scrutiny she had never been able to bear was Mother Bertrilde, and he did not frighten her as much as the Mother Superior in an angry mood.
And yet she was the first to look away, because she suddenly realized, as the heat of shame replaced the pleasant warmth, that she was actually enjoying his scrutiny in the most unseemly fashion.
“Where are you from?” she asked innocently, although she already knew the answer.
“Cornwall.”
“Ah.” His lie disappointed her. Did he think she was a fool? His dark hair and complexion gave his country away, as well as his accent. “Have you been a soldier?”
He nodded, and she hoped that this was not a lie, too.
“You are a fine fighter. Perhaps you could serve my brother. He is always seeking good soldiers.”
The man’s face darkened into a scowl and she suspected he would not answer any more of her questions. Rather than let him ignore her, she went over to the straw and lay down.
“Sleep now,” he said, settling against the wall of the building, stretching his feet out until they were nearly in the fire.
She rolled onto her side, so that her back was to him. As if she could sleep in this situation, with a man who lied to her and fought like a demon and sat there unabashedly half-naked and unashamed.
For once she was grateful that Mother Bertrilde was so strict. She had spent many a night on a vigil and had long ago learned how to rest without falling into a true sleep. If the man came anywhere near her, she would be fully awake instantly and on her guard.
* * *
Every part of Sir Roger de Montmorency’s body seemed to ache, his head in particular. Where in the name of the Blessed Virgin was he? A candle flickered on a plain bedside table that held a plain clay cup from which a medicinal smell emanated. The rest of the room was shadowed. The walls nearest him were almost painfully white and very smooth. A large crucifix hung over the bed. He could hear singing. Low, deep—men’s voices, sonorous and comforting. Chants.
It was night, and he was in a monastery.
What had happened? There had been a skirmish, with outlaws. Madeline had screamed....
“Madeline!” he cried, sitting up abruptly. The pain that shot through his temple made him flop back onto the coarse pillow.
Sir Albert Lacourt bent over him, and his anxious face looked to be floating in a mist.
“Where...?” Roger whispered.
“You are safe at the monastery of St. Christopher, Roger. You were wounded.”
“St. Christopher? Then we are nearly back at the convent! Where is Madeline?”
“We...we do not know. Everything has been done to locate her, Roger,” Albert said quickly.
“I must find Madeline.” Roger tried to get up, but he felt as weak as a newborn kitten.
Albert glanced over his shoulder at someone standing in the shadows, then bent over him again. “You have lost much blood. Father Gabriel says you must not try to get up.”
“Who in the name of the saints is Father Gabriel to order me!” Roger exclaimed weakly. Once more he struggled to sit up.
Instantly there was a pair of very gentle but very forceful hands pushing him back. “My lord, I must insist. Or you may die.”
Roger glared at the man holding him down. His gray eyes were kind but held a certain firmness of purpose that Roger had seen before, when he had been practising his sword skills and his teacher had been adamant that he keep practising. Still, this fellow had more of the scholar than the soldier about him, although he was surprisingly strong for a priest, or else, Roger thought, I am even weaker than I thought. “I have to find my sister. The wedding’s in a fortnight and we are still far from my castle.”
“Please, my lord, do not exert yourself!” Albert said. “We have Bredon out with the dogs.”
Roger felt some slight relief. Bredon was the finest huntsman in England. He was in charge of Roger’s hounds, which were also the finest in England. If anybody could find Madeline, it would be Bredon.
Albert cleared his throat and looked again at the anxious priest. “Unfortunately, it has been raining since near evening and we cannot search as we would like.”
“You must have faith, my son,” the priest said softly.
Roger de Montmorency’s lip curled skeptically in his dark, handsome face. He had faith in only three things: God, his sword and his ability to wield it. Unfortunately, God seemed to have turned his face from him, and from Madeline, too. As for his sword, he would soon have his strength back, and then he would wield it. By God, if anyone had touched her, he would ply it with no mercy. “Find her, and I want those outlaws. Alive.”
