Candle in the Window (10 page)

“There ye are, m’lady. He’s on
his back now. An’ ye know what? His color looks better
t’ me.”

“Does it?” She reached for the blanket
and tucked it under his chin, down his body and around his
ankles.

“Aye, just look at him. That sick tinge is
gone from around his mouth an’….” Bronnie’s
chatter faded as she turned her violet eyes on him.
“I’m sorry, m’lady, I wasn’t
thinkin’. Really, ’tis just ye don’t seem
t’ be blind. It took me most o’ this day t’
realize ye didn’t even know where the horse was puttin’
his hooves. Ye move around so well an’ work like a real
person.” He nodded, pleased he had cleared that up.
“Aye, like a real person, ye are.”

“Did you bring more blankets?” Saura
asked, the cold of her tone penetrating even Bronnie’s thick
skull, if not the reason for it.

“Aye. Aye, I brought ye blankets, like ye
said, m’lady. Lots of them, because there’s no hearth
in here an’ it gets cold at night. Even in th’ summer,
it is. I’ll put them here, on this table.” The squeaky
shoes crept across the room, stopping beside each pile he had
dropped and carrying it to the table he spoke of. “I brought
bandagin’ material, all torn up into strips. An’ a
whole bucket of water. Here, just a minute, I put it outside
th’ door. I’ll place it over here, by th’ bed.
Just a minute, let me drag a stool over an’ put it up there
an’ it’ll be higher for ye. Easier to reach, it will
be.” The stool scraped over to the palliasse and he thunked
the bucket up on it. “There’s still a stool for you
t’ sit on, ye know, over by th’ table. Th’
food’ll be comin’ soon. Not that ’tis ever any
good, that cook’s such a slut, but I’ll bring it
t’ ye meself.”

He trailed off, distressed with her silence, and
she felt a sudden discomfort. Bronnie, she realized, was a puppy
dog. A well meaning, idiotic puppy dog who never meant to hurt
anyone, certainly not a lord and a lady. He stood before her now,
she knew, anxiously waiting to see if she would beat
him or praise him, and she couldn’t resist the
potent appeal he projected. “You did fine, Bronnie. Thank
you.”

Those new shoes hopped for a moment, and he eagerly
inquired, “If ye need aught else ye’ll call me,
m’lady?”

“No one but you,” she promised.
“In fact, you can help me now. The lord needs to have his
clothes removed.”

“Removed?” Bronnie gasped. “Why?
He hasn’t outgrown them.”

Saura closed her eyes in exasperation. “Nay,
but he’s wet and might catch a chill. And I need to check him
over for any different wounds that may be hurting him.”

“Check him over? Ye mean, feel him? I’m
confused. They said ye weren’t married t’ th’
lord.”

“They are right.”

Bronnie’s voice rose incredulously.
“Not married an’ ye want t’ touch him? Are ye un
of those wicked women th’ priest talks about?”

The first arrows of amusement attacked
Saura’s grief. “That’s why I want you to help me.
So you can look at him and see any bruises.”

“Ohh.” Bronnie thought about that.
“Ye mean ye want me t’ tell ye if he’s
hurt.”

“Exactly.”

“But what if he’s hurt an’ ye
have t’ touch him?”

Her amusement deepened, and she could almost have
smiled. “I will do it with only pure thoughts in my
mind,” she promised.

“Lord William won’t like
that.”

“He’ll like less dying of some
untreated wound. Now let’s go to work.”

She rolled up her sleeves, preparing for hard
labor, but Bronnie said, “Nay. I’ll do it.”

“I can help.”

“I’ll do it,” he insisted.
“Ye shouldn’t touch him more than necessary. Ye
bein’ a noble lady an’ all.”

Saura nodded, bemused by the code of ethics that
allowed for murder and kidnapping but balked at a lady touching a
lord outside of the state of wedlock. Was it just Bronnie, or did
all these Saxons hold such strange beliefs?

“He’s a big ’un, isn’t
he?” Bronnie grunted. “But healthy as far as I can see.
Only a few little bruises. Ye goin’ to want him dressed
again?”

“If you want to. If you don’t want to
leave him naked in here with me.”

“Nay, nay, ’tis awright. ’Tis
awright.” Bronnie stood, panting. “Ye’re a lovely
lady, ye’ll not be playin’ with him when my
back’s turned.”

Saura turned away from him, unable to keep the grin
from breaking through. “I’ll endeavor to restrain
myself.”

“An’ I’ll bring th’ food
soon. An’….”

Saura could hear him squirm.

“I brought ye a comb.”

“A comb?” She reached up and touched
her hair. Her veil had gone long ago, the ties of her braids had
loosened. She looked, she supposed, like a witch.

“Aye, I thought ye might like t’, well,
comb your hair. ’Tis on th’ table. With a bit of ribbon
from me girl. If ye like it. ’Tis a pretty blue
color.”

“I’m sure it is. Thank you, Bronnie.
Thank you very much.” She turned and smiled at him, her
gracious-lady smile, and she heard the little jig start again, for
just a moment. Then the squeaky shoes backed toward the door.

“I’ll bring th’ food,” he
promised.

“I know you will. Thank you.”

“An’ some good wine. An’ aught
else ye need.”

“Thank you.”

The door clicked behind him, and Saura chuckled.
“Well, I guess I can convince someone of my authority,”
she told the unconscious William. “Even if it’s not
you.”

But even her authority with Bronnie couldn’t
convince him to tell her who the lord of this castle was. The man
brought dinner, as promised, and wine, and bread for the morning.
He remembered her distress when she’d walked barefoot through
the muddy bailey, and carried in another bucket of water for her to
wash with and a rough towel. But when she tried to question him, he
bumbled about, straightening the table, placing an iron candle
stand against the wall. When she insisted he take the candle away,
it distressed him. At last, he removed the candle and backed out of
the door, and left her to the silence.

And it was silent. This keep wasn’t the main
castle for the lord. The bustle of a large company, of knights and
attendants, was conspicuously absent. She alone was responsible for
her William.

She ate the dinner, which tasted just as appalling
as Bronnie promised. She rattled the door. She explored the room, a
narrow, bare cell with two arrow loops to the outside. Two stools,
a rickety table, one palliasse, and nothing to make weapons with.
She checked William’s bandage, covered him with another
blanket, and paced. Finally, she sat down on the tiny stool beside
the tiny table and took up Bronnie’s comb. With trembling
fingers, she took apart her braid and began to comb. Her hair hung
down to her thighs, a tangled web of fine, soft distraction. It
distracted her from the quiet, from the worry, from the loneliness.
The tangles diverted her from thoughts of William, so still on the
mat, and as she tamed her hair into sleekness, the rhythm of her
motion soothed her.

At last she stopped, dropped her aching arms and
folded
her hands in her lap. Soon she would
crawl onto the palliasse with William and sleep, but for now she
just wanted to sit and pray, with a fervor she had never suspected
she was capable of.

A sigh from the bed alerted her attention. A sigh,
and a groan, and a heave as William turned himself onto his side.
Saura flew from her chair to his pallet, touching him with eager
fingers until she was satisfied.

He was sleeping. Sleeping! His eyelids twitched
when she brushed them, he groaned when she pressed his head, and he
snored with the healthy rhythm of a tired man.

Sleeping! Oh, Holy Mary! Her heart filled with
thanksgiving as she tried to express to God, to herself, how she
felt about this miracle of life. She wasn’t thinking of
herself, she wasn’t thinking of how William’s presence
filled her and completed her. She only thought about William. He
slept, and that meant he would wake, and that meant there was hope!
For the first time, Saura felt hope, and she cried. The heavy sobs,
the copious tears, cleansed her until she could raise her head and
smile once more.

Saura had lied to Bronnie.

She hadn’t previously suspected it, but she
was the kind of woman the priests warned against. Wicked, immoral,
a true daughter of Eve.

As the night crept on and the temperature dropped,
the pallet and blankets and William seemed more and more inviting.
It was, she told herself, the only logical thing to do. No summer
penetrated these stones, no fires dulled the hard indifference of
cold. She’d suffer, sitting upright wrapped in one puny
blanket all night. It would be no sin to sleep with him. Not like a
wife or a whore, but simply to share body heat. Didn’t that
make sense?

Of course it did.

Before she changed her mind, she pulled at the
lacing of her cotte and cursed her clumsy fingers. She should have
let Bronnie bring the night candle and light it, for now she could
have warmed her hands by its steady flame. If she
didn’t know better, she would have thought her
fumbling resulted from a case of nerves.

She wasn’t nervous. How could she be? Lady
Saura was known for her eternal serenity, her calm disposition in
the face of trouble, her common sense. No one of any rationality
would suspect her of shaking, of clenching her teeth to keep them
from chattering, unless she was cold. She
wasn’t
nervous.

Her cotte fell to the floor beneath the weight of
its wet hem and she clutched her elbows with her hands. Some
lingering modesty made her retain her chainse; because it was
linen, she told herself, and because she always slept in it.
Actually, she couldn’t bring herself to discard the garment
with its long sleeves and drawstring neck that could be pulled
tight. For the warmth, of course.

Groping down to William’s side, she sat on
the hard pallet and pulled her hair over one shoulder. Dividing it
into three parts, she braided it with quick efficiency and tied it
with the pretty blue ribbon. Then she could delay no longer. She
slipped beneath the covers. She moved hastily, not wanting to
release the body heat to the room, and lay on her side, facing him.
She tucked her arm beneath her head and wiggled as a slight thaw
set in.

William was healthy. He’d been knocked on the
head, and now he hibernated like a peasant after a three-day
festival. Flopped onto his back once more, he lay with his head
turned to one side, snoring with energy and vigor and enthusiasm.
Saura thrilled to the sound. No matter that she could never sleep,
no matter that his snoring shook the palliasse, the blankets, and
her. He was here, he was alive, and if he woke with no memory of
the past or a twitch in his left arm, well, they’d deal with
that tomorrow.

It would be warmer if she touched him. She took a
breath,
let it out with a gasp, and grinned at
her own cowardice. Then she gathered her nerve and extended one big
toe, and touched his leg.

One toe, she told herself, wasn’t a sin. Her
feet were cold. They were always cold, even before the roaring
fires of the great hall. No matter that frost no longer nipped the
ground outside, the stones of the castle projected cold. Here, in
this little room where no hearth burned with fire, the night
carried a chill that seeped into her bones. It was ridiculous to
suffer.

What would it hurt? That one toe rubbed in a slow
pattern up and down his calf, weaving its path through the springy
hair that coated him from ankle to knee. His knee, she discovered,
warranted closer examination, first with her toe, then with her
foot. Her sole was sensitive, and worked in partnership with her
toes to sample the rougher, more flexible skin above the joint. Now
she had one whole foot on him. This wasn’t so difficult. The
other foot joined the first, tucking itself between his leg and the
mattress, and his marvelous simmer set it tingling.

No sin, she argued with herself, to climb a little
closer and melt more than just her feet. Her skin was overrun with
goosebumps, and it seemed the closer she inched to his heat the
more insistent the chill outside the covers became. Her linen
chainse protected her from skin-to-skin contact. Truly, she was
only a little wicked. And he was so big and warm. She toasted like
a piece of day-old bread before his fire. First her upper leg
reached across his thighs, then the other leg pulled up tight
against him from thigh to calf. She eased her chest close against
his arm, and the sensation endowed her with the courage to close
the gap completely.

Then she lay motionless. His snores had diminished
in volume if not in regularity. His breath ruffled her hair now,
sultry in the frigid air of the room. It seemed
pleasant to be so close to him. In fact, it was delectable. She
wallowed in this contrast of cold and heat, of pure animal comfort,
and hard palliasse below with rough blankets above. It seemed
unfair, somehow, that her chainse separated them so completely. She
couldn’t really feel him, missed the sensation of skin
against skin, but when her hand went to the drawstring at her neck,
her temerity dissipated. She had to snuggle, she told herself,
because he loomed so big he hogged the covers. But she
couldn’t justify nudity, even to her rationalizing mind, and
her hand fell away.

She ran her hands over William with a tentative
touch. Tonight was a time of joy, of celebration, of
exploration.

She’d never been able to touch him before.
She’d never been granted the freedom to read his face and
body, and now…ah, now.

She pressed her palms against his chest. His heart
throbbed there, his chest rose and fell in a wonderful example of
robust respiration. Taking her braid in her hand, she pulled it up
so it wouldn’t tickle him, and laid her head down. Beneath
her ear she could hear the rasp of wind and the thu-thump under his
skin. Irresistibly, the hair of his chest titillated her cheek, and
she turned her nose into it. He smelled like no one else. His
dunking in the creek had cleaned away the sweat of the fight, and
he smelled golden.

Isn’t that the way Maud had described him?
Golden. To Saura, golden was the scent of an autumn day, redolent
with dry cut hay and crackling leaves. It was the satisfaction of
plucking a flower she had planted, the stimulation of velvet
beneath her fingertips and the growth of a skein of yarn as she
twirled it off the distaff. Golden was the sun caressing her face
on an afternoon nap in her garden.

William pulsed below her, and his golden scent rose
up in
waves of intoxicating spice. She rubbed
her face along his chest, seeking the source of his fragrance, but
it seemed his zest lay both defined and elusive.

Leaning herself against him, she explored his face
with meticulous care. His neck grew from his shoulders in one
decisive column, muscled as surely as his arms. Stubborn resistance
sat on the square of his jaw, but he disguised it with his clipped
beard. His nose she couldn’t read; it had been broken so many
times its creator’s original intent was undecipherable. His
ears she found pleasure in: small and well placed, tight against
his head. She swept her fingertip through the whorls and down the
lobe, amazed at the existence of such a refined feature on such a
virile man.

It seemed her action disturbed him, for he muttered
and coughed, his breath coming in a gust, and she jumped back
guiltily. She dislodged the covers as she sat up, and she listened
to the sounds within the castle. A deep hush saturated the room;
only now did it occur to her that he no longer snored with his
hearty rhapsody. It had died into normal exhalations as she touched
him. Thinking back, it seemed she hadn’t heard those snores
of exhaustion since she had first inspected his chest.

He settled with a sigh, and she sat without moving
until she was sure he drifted deep into slumber. At last, she
shivered in the chill draft, and her need for warmth overwhelmed
her wariness. With painstaking care, she adjusted the covers until
she leaned into him again. She should sleep, she should forget the
urge to discover his face, but her hands trembled as she ignored
her own strictures. His eyes sat deep below the bone of his
forehead, his bushy eyebrows accentuated the contrast. His broad
brow elucidated his strength, his hair shifted through her fingers
like fine-textured sand.

She knew what he looked like now. Now she could see
him, now she had defined the lines of his face
for her mind. Shaped from the workman’s chisel, the whole was
the sum of the parts: strong, compassionate, refined,
determined.

Her curiosity satisfied for the moment, she rested
her head against his shoulder and found her hand rubbing his chest
in a circular motion. Did he enjoy such tactile stimulation as much
as she did? Her lips brushed him, propelled by some primal desire,
and her tongue traced the cords of his neck. Savoring his
provocative flavor, her mouth traveled down his chest into the
jaunty nest.

The tips of his hair thrilled her hands as she
delicately pursued its outline up in a triangle to his shoulders.
His collarbones extended to a width she had never imagined, and she
sat up hastily and compared them to her own. Her collarbone she
spanned easily with her fingers: his stretched a full four fingers
more. Eagerly, her hands went back and discovered evidence of a
break, well healed but still evident to her trained touch.
Massaging the breadth of his shoulders from neck to arm, she
marvelled. He had so many muscles! They rippled his skin like the
grain of a well-honed oak beam. His skin felt smooth as a
baby’s, until her fingers stumbled across the scars and
ridges that celebrated his livelihood. His arms were powerful, his
hands huge squares of authority. His fingers surprised her: long,
blunt tipped, but sensitive.

Hands were important to her, the mirror of the
soul, and his hands told of his kindness and control, his temper
and his majesty. She lingered over his hands, pleased by her
findings, but at last she could resist no longer.

Following the path she had already taken, she
verified her findings. William was big, a mass of muscle and
coordination worthy of the title “knight.”

But more than that, he was a man, and her seeking
fingers
slid down his chest, down his rippling
belly, down the line of his hair. A maiden’s curiosity drove
her; irresistible temptation was not to be resisted.

Saura jumped when her hand connected with his
organ. She hadn’t expected such a fire and firmness. She
thought of all she had been told about the mating of humans, and
she shook her head. “’Tis not possible,” she said
aloud.

“I assure you, it is,” he rumbled
beneath her ear.

So startled she forgot to be embarrassed, she
jumped, screamed just a little, and released him.

He laid his huge hand on her head. “More than
possible, I’d say ’tis mandatory.”

“What do you mean?” She held her voice
steady.

His hand stroked her hair back from her face.
“Just what I said.”

“How long have you been awake?”
Cautiously, she eased back from him.

“Don’t move,” he ordered.
“This justifies my use as a warming pan.”

She froze, so chagrined she blushed to the tips of
her toes. “I hoped you hadn’t noticed.”

Her arm rested against his stomach, and so she felt
the convulsion of muscle as he struggled against his laughter. His
fingers shook against her forehead and he dropped his arm.
“Noticed? That you used me as a warming pan or that your
hands were on me?”

“My hands….” She blushed again,
for saying something so incredibly stupid.

It was a long moment before he spoke, and then his
voice shook and jerked. But he kindly ignored her
bêtise
. “I’ve been awake since
that first dab of your frosty toe against my leg. Every man should
wake with a block of ice placed against
his
leg. ’Tis a great deal of pleasure you’ve given me,
although not,” he chuckled, “from your feet.”

“Why didn’t you speak?”

“You were enjoying yourself.”

That made her sit up straight. “And you
weren’t?”

His hand clasped her shoulder and eased her back
down on the palliasse. “So much. Saura. So much.”

She lay there stiff, shamed by her previous
boldness, and he settled beside her. One muscled arm wrapped under
her neck and the other wrapped around her waist, and he cradled her
so close against him that his breath regulated hers. He just held
her beneath his chin and warmed her.

The tenseness slid away, leaving enormous
contentment. When she cuddled her head into his chest, his hands
began a slow tugging at her braid.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I like the smell of your hair,” he
rumbled. “I like the silkiness of it, and I want it loose
when I love you.”

She tried to stiffen again, but his heat had crept
into her like a narcotic, and her muscles no longer responded to
shock. “You can’t love me,” she said, but the
protest sounded languid.

“’Tis the reason you came to bed with
me,” he reasoned.

“I was cold.”

“And the reason you woke me with your icy
feet.”

“I wanted to warm them.”

“And the reason you rubbed me when your chill
didn’t wake me and kissed me when your rubbing didn’t
wake me. You wanted me awake, and functioning. Weren’t you
interested in my lips?”

“Your lips?”

“You felt every other part of me.”

“Not your legs,” she objected
indignantly.

“I stopped you before you got that
far,” he pointed out.

Miserable, she realized she couldn’t justify
her curiosity about his body with the obvious explanation that she
was blind and had never seen him. He still had no inkling. If he
thought about it at all, he thought she walked and worked and moved
with the confidence of a seeing person. Flattering, but difficult
to explain.

“My lips,” he prompted.

“Lips are for kissing, that kind of deep
kissing that men enjoy, and I didn’t want….” Her
voice trailed off, lost in the muddle of explanation.