Captive Rose (34 page)

"Yes, of course, my lord," Edward replied, a
subdued Eleanor granting them no more than a slight nod before she turned away
with a troubled expression on her face.

"You're hurting my arm!" Leila hissed as he
hustled her from the dais and down the stairs, her gaze darting around the
raucous hall. The second course was being passed around with much fanfare among
the guests, distracting most of them from recognizing her discomfort.

"Are you always so rude to people who show you
kindness?" Guy hissed back angrily. "A queen offering you her
friendship, no less!"

"It was not my intention to be rude. I was only
speaking the truth!"

"You are blind to the truth, Leila. You won't know
it until it slaps you hard across the
face,
and maybe
even then you won't admit it. For an intelligent woman, you are playing the
fool remarkably well!"

She wanted to retort, but they were nearing her brother's
table. From Roger's hard glare she imagined he hadn't taken his eyes from her
since Lord Edward had led her away. Maude looked none too happy, either. There
was
a coldness
in her eyes that chilled Leila to the
bone. Strangely, it was not so much directed at Guy as at her. But why would
that be?

"Take care, my love," came Guy's cryptic
warning just before they reached the table. "You tread within a pit of
vipers. If you allow yourself to be bitten, even I may not be able to save you,
though I pray to God we're both spared such agony. Just remember what I told
you in Canterbury." Then he raised his voice, addressing Roger. "My
lord
Gervais
, it seems your sister has charmed the
court."

"So I see," Roger said, his gaze moving
slowly from Leila's flushed face to Guy's. "So I see."

"My lady. Enjoy the feast."

Leila watched as Guy strode away, only turning her head
when Roger touched her arm.

"Stay away from him, Leila. Suffice it to say he
is my greatest enemy. That makes him yours as well."

A shiver raced up her spine at his harsh voice, but she
answered him steadily, "I fully intend to, my lord."

Chapter 18

It did not prove difficult to avoid Guy the next day.
Leila scarcely saw him.

During the lengthy coronation ceremony she was seated
in the back of the congested abbey with her brother and his wife, their poor
location barely affording her a view of the glittering pomp and circumstance
taking place in front of the distant altar, let alone a glimpse of Guy. Not
that she was looking for him. She wasn't.

By chance she did spy him later in the long train of
sumptuously dressed nobles, ladies, and knights who filed out of the cathedral
after the newly crowned King Edward and Queen Eleanor. Guy stood a good head
taller than anyone else around him and looked devastatingly handsome in a tunic
of forest green and gold. She quickly feigned interest in the stained glass
windows to her right until he had
passed,
her cheeks
hot and her heart fluttering because she sensed he had seen her, too.

The feasting and revelry that followed the coronation
was on a much grander scale than the feast of the night before, and with twice
as many guests crammed into the great hall. She noted at once that Guy was not
seated on the raised dais, but there were so many people still milling about
when their party found a table that she had no clue as to where he might be.
She tried to give him little thought after that, which for some reason proved
virtually impossible.

She was astounded at the inscribed menu placed in the
center of the table promising hundreds of oxen, cows, sheep, and pigs, sixteen
fat boars, and thousands of capons and other poultry. But even more surprising
was the aqueduct that had been erected overnight down the middle of the hall
and poured forth both red and white wine for everyone to drink. The guests
gathered around like greedy pigs at a trough, draining their goblets as quickly
as they could fill them.

As the coronation feast progressed there was such a
constant swirl of bustling servants, jesters on painted hobby horses, jugglers,
acrobats, players reciting poems, harpers, and minstrels that the room soon
spun around Leila in a wild kaleidoscope of color, sound, and motion. She began
to feel overwhelmingly dizzy. Perhaps it was because the food was too rich, the
wine too sweet, or the hall too warm. Smoking torches and acrid smelling candles
were ablaze everywhere, despite the beautiful autumn afternoon outside.

"You look pale, Leila," came her brother's
voice through the melee, sounding like a dull echo in her head. "Is
something wrong?"

She looked at him, but his face was blurred. She tried
to speak, but her tongue would not work. The last thing she remembered was
Maude screaming, then blackness.

***

Leila's eyes fluttered open and her vision gradually
focused.

Where was she? In Westminster Hall? No, surely not. It
was cool here and there were no bright lights, no smelly foods, no loud
music
or raucous laughter, just that female voice carrying
over to her . . .

"We cannot afford to return to Wales with her now
and continue deceiving her while we wait for a better offer, my husband. One
fainting spell does not prove a woman is breeding, but dare we risk losing
everything on the chance she isn't carrying de
Warenne's
bastard?"

Leila tensed as she recognized the voice as Maude's.
Suddenly her surroundings seemed to snap into sharp relief and she realized she
was in her brother's tent.

She saw them then, sitting together at a trestle table
in the corner not far from her cot. With apprehension filling her heart, she
closed her eyes and lay very still, listening intently. She started when Roger
brought his fist down violently on the table, then she froze again, hoping they
had not seen her movement.

"I should kill Guy for this! You saw how he came
running after me when I carried Leila from the hall. I've never seen such a
stricken look on his face, not even for Christine. If that does not prove there
has been something between them, whether Leila shares his fantasy or not—"

"All the more reason why we cannot wait, my lord.
Even now he may be considering a suit for her hand. Remember what we saw at the
feast last night. De
Warenne
had eyes for no one but
her."

"Only over my corpse will he marry her."

"You know the law, husband. If Leila gives her
consent, we will have no choice but to allow such a union."

"So she must never be given the chance to even
entertain the thought."

"Exactly. I say we wed her to that London
merchant, Wellesley, who approached you last night after the
feast,
and the sooner the better. Tonight, even! If Leila does prove to be breeding,
he'll think it's his own brat she carries. So what if he gets a surprise eight
months later. He won't dare renounce her then, but will accept the child as his
own or forgo the reason he paid so dearly for her in the first place. Having a
titled wife is very good for business."

Listening, Leila felt so sick she thought she might
retch, Roger's assurances of the day before shattered into a thousand pieces.

Sweet
Jesu
, Guy had been
right about him all along. What a complete fool she had been!

Roger had lied to her. He had no intention of allowing
her to return to Damascus. He was going to sell her off in marriage just as Guy
had said he would. Maybe tonight! And all because they thought she might be
pregnant with Guy's child—

"Stay here with her, Maude. I'm going back to the
hall to find Wellesley. We'll fetch a priest and have done with this marriage
by sunset. God, just think of it. No more debts to the king" —his voice
grew bitter— "no more selling myself and my knights out to fight in any
baron's petty war for fear I may lose the land on which I was born. The
Gervais
name will be great once again . . . and all because
a soft-hearted whore in Damascus saw fit to bless me with a sister."

Leila was so horrified she could not breathe. Whore!
Was that what Roger thought of their mother? Hearing his footsteps approach the
cot, she went limp, praying that all her years of observing sick patients would
enable her to feign unconsciousness.

"This wench is as much a whore as her mother, that
lover of infidels back in Damascus. How could she be anything less? Raised in a
harem . . . wanting to return to Syria to marry some bloody heathen physician.
It's almost comical."

"What is, my lord?" Maude asked, walking up
beside him.

"The idea of Guy caring for this wench. Knowing
him, I wager he rutted on her the whole way to England and now fancies himself
in love with her. Yet all along she's been saying she wants to go back to Damascus.
I hope he's suffering hell's own torments." His voice grew very quiet. "Soon
he'll know exactly how it feels to have a woman stolen right out from under
him. It's been a long, long time in coming."

"But you have me, my lord," Leila heard Maude
say petulantly, accompanied by the rustling of clothing. "You don't need
memories, not when I can do this."

"You're right. I don't," Roger replied
huskily a few minutes later, groaning deep in his throat. "Lie down."

"Here . . . on the ground?"

"Why not?"

"But what if she should wake?"

Leila knew they were looking right at her. She
continued to breathe steadily though her pulse was racing madly.

"She's out cold, Maude. Can't you see that?"

Disgusted, Leila heard his grunt as he
knelt,
followed by Maude's throaty laughter as he pulled her
roughly to the ground and fell on top of her. How she wished she could plug her
ears against the crude panting and squeals of their lovemaking! From Roger's
hard exhalation of breath, she knew he had quickly climaxed, and from Maude's
wail of disappointment, she knew her sister-in-law had not.

"Oh, Roger, it was too soon! Too fast!"

Maude's heavy sigh and the subsequent silence told
Leila even more. Roger didn't care in the least that he had not pleased her; he
had probably quelled her outburst with a dark and threatening look. Leila
listened as he rose to his feet and adjusted his clothing, then hoisted up his
wife.

"If Leila wakes while I'm gone, see that she stays
in bed. I'll speak with her when I get back.

"She'll probably protest—"

"I expect it. My answer will be the same as it
would have been in Wales. When she hears what I have in store for her if she
refuses, she'll give her consent to the marriage readily enough. To be locked
in a convent cell is a sorry fate for any beautiful young woman, even more so
when she can expect to be flogged twice daily for her sins."

As they stepped away, Leila heard Maude's tone brighten
sickeningly. "
Oooh
, you know how much I enjoy a
good paddling, my lord, and giving one as well. Perhaps tonight we might celebrate
our good fortune by . . ."

Leila was glad the rest of her sister-in-law's words
were lost to her as they moved outside the tent. She shuddered as she raised
herself on one elbow, her gaze flitting around the shadowed interior for any
means of escape.

In the harem she had heard of men like Roger, men
capable of only cruel, depraved relationships with women because of some
romantic slight suffered in the past. At that moment she almost pitied Maude,
because for whatever reason her sister-in-law had obviously chosen to accept
it. Who knew? Maybe Maude even loved Roger.

Leila barely lay down in time when Maude suddenly threw
aside the flap and stepped back into the tent. Roger must have said something
to appease her for she was humming, her dissatisfaction clearly vanished.

How was she ever going to get out of here? Leila wondered
desperately, listening as Maude poured water into a basin and began to wash
herself
.

She couldn't dash out the only entrance to the tent.
Several of
Gervais's
men-at-arms were standing guard
right outside. And the tent had appeared to be securely staked down on all
sides. Maybe there was the slightest chance she could squeeze under one of the
tent walls, but Maude would surely sound an alarm and send Roger's men chasing
after her. Yet she couldn't just lie here and wait helplessly for Roger to
return with the priest and that accursed merchant.

Leila opened one eye slightly and discovered that her
sister-in-law was standing about twenty feet away with her back turned. Maybe,
just maybe, if she was quiet enough . . .

As Maude's singing grew louder, Leila slipped from the
cot, yanking her silver tunic and
chainse
up around
her thighs, and crawled on hands and knees to the tent wall. Glancing
constantly over her shoulder, she groped along the ground, trying to find a
place where she could lift the tent enough to slide beneath it. She was almost
ready to give up and opt for a mad dash through the front entrance when her
forearm disappeared easily under a loose section of canvas.

Holding her breath, she began to lift the tent wall
just as she heard Maude gasp in surprise. She turned to find her sister-in-law
hurrying toward her with pure fury on her face.

"You little bitch! Stop, I tell you!"

Her heart thumping furiously, Leila dove under the tent
wall, but to her dismay, she felt Maude catch her ankle. Her sister-in-law's
enraged screams filled the air.

"She's escaping! Guards! Quick, go around to the
other side. Catch her! I don't think I can hold her—"

"Let go of me!" Leila shouted, giving Maude a
sharp kick.

In the next instant she was free and scrambling to her
feet, except now she couldn't see a thing. Her hair had fallen over her face.
Swiping it away, she lunged forward and broke into a run . . . and slammed
right into something very hard.