Candle in the Window (14 page)

“Making mistakes is more honorable than doing
nothing.” She broke into his tirade. “You need to know
who the other conspirator is, and I thought he might tell
me
.”

“Aye, he’d tell a woman long before
he’d tell me, but Saura, don’t you ever do anything so
foolish again.” He spaced the words individually, dealing a
warning with them one by one. “I lost ten years when he
jumped on you. What if he’d had a knife?”

“It did not improve my outlook,
either.”

“I’m glad we agree. Now, come.”
He leaned down and picked up something from the floor beside the
mat. “Your ribbon,” he said, and she snatched it from
him and tucked it in her pocket.

Halfhearted pounding barely shook the door now, and
William said, “’Tis time to leave this accursed
place.” He pulled the door open and waved the three young men
inside.
“He’s there,” he
said, pointing. Tucking Saura’s hand in his arm, he waited as
they rushed through the door. Then the prisoners strolled out, and
William slammed the door behind them.

A twist of the key in the lock, and a
quick toss out the arrow loop, and William dusted his fingers with
satisfaction. “They’re safely confined.”

He pulled Saura along the short corridor until they
reached the stair winding down the tower. Tucking her hand into his
elbow and placing her hand on the wall, he added, “At least
until they use that candle stand to break the door. The steps are
uneven.” He paused while she found her footing and then
hurried her down, keeping up a steady pace, easy for her to follow.
They neared the level of the great hall, and he slowed.
“I’m going in to scavenge some bread.”

“William!”

“And I want you to stay on the stair. Stand
here on the landing.” He placed her firmly against the wall
and handed her the blankets. “Wait. I’ll be right
back.”

“You fool,” she called.
“Let’s leave now.”

He ignored her, trusting his instincts. The danger
didn’t
exist in the keep, and a
moment’s worth of preparation would arm them later.

“Halt! Who—what are ye
doin’?”

William gawked. The quavering challenge issued from
the only servant in the great hall. Tattered clothes and dirty face
couldn’t disguise the fair young man. Tall and muscular, he
displayed the kind of healthy glow that makes women stare and men
snort in jealous disgust. His long brown hair shone with auburn
highlights, encasing a face angular in its beauty. His beardless
jaw jutted out with authority, his skin displayed the kind of
texture that made a woman itch to touch it. He held in his hand a
carving knife, and it trembled and tilted as he called again,
“How did ye get out?”

William growled in response, but Saura glided out
of her hiding place. “Bronnie!”

The rest of what she said was lost in the buzzing
of William’s ears.
This
was
Bronnie? The sniveling coward at the riverbank, Saura’s
caretaker, was this comely youth?

He turned to look at Saura, and a gracious smile
lit her face as she spoke to Bronnie. She liked the idiot! Fondness
etched her face in lines of indulgence. He looked down at himself,
at his rough warrior hands and his tough warrior body, and realized
blindness could indeed be a blessing. He trusted Saura, but good
God! This boy could tempt a saint!

“See, m’lady?” Bronnie was
saying. “All your worryin’ last night was for naught.
The lord is fine, just fine.”

“And he can see,” William warned and
watched with disbelief as the youth hopped behind the table.

“Not true!” he protested.

“’Tis true,” Saura affirmed.
“A miracle.”

“Oh, aye, m’lady.” His head
bobbed madly. “But what of—” He jerked his head
upward.

“Lord Arthur decided to let me go.” A
pounding echoed
down the stairway, belying his
story. “And he suggested I take a horse from the
stables.”

“And bread and wine, Bronnie,” Saura
added.

“Oh, aye.” Bronnie’s eyes had
widened so his silky lashes swept his upper lids.

“And a sword, Bronnie,” William
mocked.

Cowed by William’s towering animosity and the
outbreak of yelling from above, the boy backed even further around
the table. “Lord Arthur would cut off my hands. I dunno aught
about swords an’ such.”

Brushing her sweeping hair back over her shoulders,
Saura soothed, “We know you don’t. The weapons room is
undoubtedly in the undercroft—”

“And we can break down the door,”
William interrupted.

“There’s…there’s this sword
right here on the bench. Lord Arthur dropped it off on his way
upstairs, but he should—”

“Thank you.” William vaulted across the
table and seized the sword in its scabbard. “Very
nice,” he said.

“But Lord Arthur—”

“Will be glad to loan it to his old
friend.” William pulled the sword and pointed it with meaning
at the trembling servant.

“Put that sword away and stop intimidating
him, William,” Saura scolded, and he jumped guiltily and
sheathed it. “Bread, Bronnie? And wine?”

When at last Saura waved good-bye to the palsied
boy, they rode the two finest horses in Arthur’s stables and
carried their goods in a leather saddle bag. “That’s
exactly the kind of watchdog I’d expect Arthur to have.
Anxious to unload everything to save his neck,” William
confided as he hurried them across the drawbridge, Saura’s
leading rein in
hand. Pushing their mounts into
a gallop, he muttered, “The sooner we’re away, the
happier I’ll be.”

Hidden in the trees, the silent watcher observed as
they fled. The morning sun illuminated William, his giant body
filled with vigor, his hair and beard golden as they flailed in the
wind. The joy of sight lit his face, and no one, certainly not the
silent watcher, could mistake it for anything else. He observed
William and Saura, and cursed them with the most fluid and virulent
curses he could bring up from hell. And cursed Arthur, too, for his
intervention, and wondered if the stupid fool had spoken his name
to William, his dear friend, his deepest enemy.

“We’ll stop here,” William
decided, looking around the tiny copse. A shelf of rock broke the
wind and created a fall for the tiny stream where he would water
the horses. The mixture of oaks and rangy poplar provided a sort of
shelter, giving a protected feel to the hollow.

“But why?” Saura asked in bewilderment.
“I thought you wanted to ride to Burke tonight.”

He raised his head and sniffed the air.
“We’re safe enough now, I can feel it. And you’re
tired.” She was more than tired, he knew. He’d watched
her squirm on the saddle for the past hour, trying to find a
comfortable position. She hadn’t complained, but he suspected
the riding he’d done the night before had stretched her
tender muscles long past the point of comfort. And they
were
safe. That prickling of caution
had left him as they rode away from Arthur’s castle.
He’d keep his trained senses alert and make her rest all the
night. Rest and heal, for tomorrow at Burke Castle would be
difficult for her.

“Where are we?” she questioned.

“Nowhere,” he replied with
satisfaction. “I dare not stop at a castle. The explanations
would be too tedious, and this episode has taught me a caution I
never possessed previously. Now come,” he ordered, going to
her horse and touching her ankle. She slung her leg over without
complaint and slid down into his arms. He held her for a moment,
her body no bigger than a will-o’-the-wisp against his
muscular chest.

“William?” she said. “My feet are
dangling.”

“Aye,” he breathed. “And
you’re a bonny woman.” He held her one more moment, and
then he placed her on the ground and lightly slapped her bottom.
“Stop tempting me.”

Surprised by his abrupt change of mood, she stepped
away, rubbing herself. “I’m not tempting you! How am I
tempting you?” she asked indignantly.

“You sit on the horse, riding with such grace
and dignity, and all the time I know underneath that lady’s
camouflage, you’re a wanton. Not just any wanton, either.
You’re mine, gracious to everyone else and waiting for my
touch to ignite.”

She pulled a face of disbelief. “Can I safely
walk to the water?”

“Aye, the ground is smooth, and the pool is
that way.” He gave her a little push in the right direction
and watched her limp toward the water that gathered beneath the
tiny waterfall. “And you deny you’re tempting
me!”

“Not at all,” she said. Gathering her
skirt high, she tied it with the rope around her waist. As William
gaped at the shapely display, she waded into the ankle-high water
and sank down with a sigh of delight. “Tempting you is my
primary ambition.”

Turning to the horses, he muttered,
“You’ve succeeded.” He groomed the horses,
watered them, pegged them to graze.
He rummaged
through the saddlebags and spread the blanket across the soft
grass. Then he lay back and watched the clouds form themselves into
fluffy representations of feminine calves and thighs and buttocks.
When Saura called him at last, he wished he were not a
conscientious man. An
âme
damnée
, like Arthur, would have eased himself with her
with no thought to her misery.

He could not. He rose and caught her hand as she
waded from the water, ignoring her dripping flesh. He placed her on
the blankets, ordered her to stay and walked upstream to fashion a
pole and fling it into the water. By the time he returned,
freshwater trout strung on a string of vine, Saura napped in the
late afternoon sunshine and reason ruled his body once more.

She woke as he kindled the fire, sitting up with no
warning to say, “William?”

“Here.” He fed twigs to the fire and
watched as she relaxed. “Are you hungry?”

“Aye,” she said bluntly. “Did you
have luck on your hunting trip?”

“Fishing. And aye, we’ll eat well
tonight. You’re an independent woman, aren’t
you?”

She raised one eyebrow at the question, coming as
it did out of the ether.” Aye, I’m
independent.”

“And you take pride in doing a woman’s
duty?”

“I doubt this questioning relates to our
activities in the night.” She chewed her lip. “But aye,
I do a woman’s duty.”

“Good! Then you can clean the fish.” He
sat back on his haunches and burst into laughter at the look of
fastidious disgust on her classical features.

“I’ll tell you what I always tell my
brothers. You caught them, you clean them,” she said
promptly.

The sun said good morning to the gliding clouds
with intense hues of gold and orange and pink. It lit the treetops
and wakened the birds, but William needed no waking. Like a child
before Christmas, he woke early, anticipating the return of the
sun, the return of his sight. Would he ever stop marveling at the
dawn’s light? he wondered. He cuddled Saura closer under his
chin, tucking the blanket around her shoulders to ward off the
chill. The pine boughs covered by one blanket provided a fragrant,
springy mattress for them.

He hadn’t let her take off her clothes to
sleep, hadn’t let her touch him in any way, and she’d
cried until he’d made it clear his rejection was only
temporary. “Saura,” he’d said, “we’ll
have many days ahead of us.”

But she’d only cried harder, shaking her head
and clutching at him. He’d rubbed her back, soothing her
until she slipped off and then he’d drifted into the light
sleep of a warrior. He’d kept one ear tuned to pursuit, but
as he expected, none had disturbed them.

Now he quivered with the expectations of a child on
Twelfth Night. By the glove of God, today he would feast his eyes
on the world, on
his
world. He would
view Burke clad all in the glory of summer, see the face of his
son, puzzled at first and then overjoyed, see his father break into
the manly tears that characterized his deepest emotions. He’d
show them Saura, tell them about his plans to marry. He snagged her
caressing hand.

“Awake, little girl?”

“Um.” She rubbed her head on his chest
and strands of her loose hair caught in his beard. As he
disentangled it, her other hand crept across his thigh.

Scooping her wandering fingers up and out of the
blanket,
he kissed her palm. “You are,
indeed, the sort of woman Bronnie worried about.”

She laughed, a musical sound that blended with the
rustle of the leaves and the ripple of the stream. “And
you’re too determined.”

“Determined to ride home today.”
Sweeping the cover away, he stood and urged, “Rise.”
His grip on her wrists tugged her erect on the grass beside the
blanket.

She stumbled and swayed, and he supported her until
she steadied.

“Wash and prepare yourself,” he
commanded. “We ride to Burke at once.”

Some of the cheer faded from her face. “Of
course, William,” she said and went to do his bidding.

She performed her ablutions, combed her hair with
her fingers and braided it. He glanced at her as he folded the
first blanket. Wondering at her sober mien, he kicked the boughs
aside, lifted the two corners of the other blanket and said,
“Help me fold this.” As she found the other corners and
placed them together, he studied her. “Saura, what’s
wrong?”

“’Tis nothing,” she assured him,
a weak smile curving her lips.

Folding once more and then flipping the cover to
straighten the wrinkles, he grunted disbelievingly.

“Truly, my lord,” she assured him as
they walked together and she handed him her half of the
blanket.

“You’re an abominable liar,
dearling.” Hugging her, he trapped the cover between them.
“You don’t know how to arrange your features
correctly.”

She hesitated, fighting it, but at last she burst
out, “Oh, couldn’t we stay here another hour? One more
hour before we go back to reality?”

He searched her upturned face, dewy with unshed
tears, and without a word shook out the freshly folded blanket and
spread it on the grass. He placed the other blanket, folded, on one
edge as a pillow. Sweeping her into his arms, he knelt and laid her
in the middle. He tumbled with loose grace at her side, fit his
shoulder against hers, and a silence fell between them.

“I should not have asked,” she
whispered. “But this time with you has been,” she
didn’t know how else to describe it,
“golden.”

Too few golden times had graced her life, William
realized, and his contentment deepened. It was his company, his
love that made her happy. Watching the leaves quiver in the light
wind, curiosity stirred within him. “If you could change
aught about your life, what would it be?”

“My height,” Saura answered
promptly.

“Your height?” Startled, he turned his
head and studied the woman lying beside him. She stared up at the
leaves, too. He would have sworn she saw them. “Why your
height?”

“I always wanted to be tall and willowy,
instead of short and lumpy.”