Authors: Mistress Angel
She felt her eyes fill and averted her face. She had
been barely on the verge of womanhood when he had left for Outremer, and they
had been only friends: a chaste four-month companionship of an older youth and
a young girl. Guillelm had been indulgent with her and she had foolishly taken
his kindly dealings as a sign of hope for the future. A false future, as it
turned out, for Guillelm did not remember her. Not even after their trial
together in the woods, when they had saved each other….
But she would not remind him. Pride would be her
savior now.
She felt his fingers under her chin, their gentle touch
almost undoing her. She lifted her head, bracing herself to explain who she was
and how it was that Hardspen was so lately run down and under threat of
imminent siege.
She found herself staring at a brutally handsome,
smiling face, dominated by a pair of brilliant dark brown eyes.
“You gave me a rare look of welcome from the stairs
just then, almost as if you knew me,” Guillelm said, his smile deepening as
Alyson felt herself blushing. “If I might presume on your charity, I would beg
two favors.”
“Yes, my lord?” Alyson prompted, as he fell silent.
Was he aware of every man in the room avidly watching their exchange? Already
ill at ease, she wanted to run from the great hall and keep on running, far
into the rain-swept night.
As if he guessed her thoughts, Guillelm gave her
another swift smile. “They are nothing terrible, I vow: merely a wish for your
company as I reacquaint myself with this keep—” His dark eyes gleamed in the
torchlight as he added, “—and your kiss of greeting.”
The instant he spoke, Guillelm thought, What am I
doing? Only a few hours earlier he had been standing before his father’s tomb
in the tiny local church of Olverton where Lord Robert had been buried, his
head full of memories and grief. Only yesterday, when he disembarked from his
ship at Bristol, had he learned that his father was dead. With that dreadful
news and Hardspen castle under threat he had no time for idle, pleasant
gallantries, even with a serving maid as pretty as this one.
And yet this dainty, dark-haired serving maid had
given him such a smile of welcome, and of sympathy, that he had been comforted.
She had not mocked him or flinched, she had given him instead a look of
recognition, as if she knew him. She was familiar to him, he felt; as familiar
in some ways as the breath in his body, but his mind was moving slowly tonight,
trying to take in the loss of his father and his own sudden coming into his
inheritance. He had responsibilities to face; the fate of many lives had been
placed by God into his hands, and he must be equal to it, not distracted by
this girl who reminded him—of what? Something he had put aside long ago, with
pain and regret, as being out of his reach.
But what was the use of these thoughts? he reflected,
trying to fight off a well-worn, familiar despair. Women feared him—his elder
sister Juliana had been proved right about that. What had Heloise of Jerusalem
said to him when she had dismissed his suit? “You are too big and brutal, my
lord Guillelm,” she had drawled, her hazel eyes widening as she reveled in his
frozen expression of shame and distaste. “They call you dragon on the field of
battle—you would burn a woman to ashes in your marriage bed.” He had stumbled
out of Heloise’s hot airless chamber, the sight of her opulent, silk-draped
body, artfully arranged blonde curls and beautiful mocking face burning like a
brand into his memory, her scornful voice singing his ears.
“My Lord! Only kiss the creature and let us all return
to our ale!”
Thierry again—damn the man to hellfire! Guillelm
thought, scowling at the interruption and his men’s laughter, swiftly stifled
as they registered his anger.
“My Lord!” the small, skinny seneschal was starting to
say something but he was cut off by the maid herself, who observed in a low,
swift voice, “Do not be concerned. All is well, Sericus.”
To Guillelm there seemed to be a challenge in her
words. He took a step closer, amused when she stood her ground. Again, a
strange sense of recognition shot through him, an instinct that he knew her
very well.
Or was it merely that he found her pleasing? the cynic
in Guillelm asked himself. Even when she had been standing in the shadowy
stairwell, sequestered like a nun by that drab gown and veil, her beauty had
shone through, brighter than any torch. She was more than a head shorter than
him, small and fine-boned, so that he felt clumsy beside her, and yet she moved
and carried herself as boldly as a warrior, as though she had no fear of him.
As she stood before him now, he could smell the
perfume of her hair, the scent of rosemary filling his nostrils as he quelled a
sudden, powerful desire to tug off her veil. From the few stray tendrils
escaping the edges of that plain cloth to frame her flawless, heart-shaped
face, Guillelm knew that her hair was black: very black and fine and straight.
He guessed it would be long, reaching as far as her slender waist: fine
shimmering tresses that a man could lay his head on for comfort, love.
“My Lord?” she inquired softly as he took her hand in
his. It was a work-roughened hand, resting in his as lightly as thistledown.
This close, he could see the dark shadows under her eyes, the taut, bleached
look of her cheeks and was pierced by pity for her weariness. This little maid
had clearly done much in this castle but where was her mistress, the new lady
of Hardspen? he thought, caught in that instant between anger at the unseen
chatelaine and protectiveness for her maid. He had heard rumors tonight that
had set his teeth on edge: that his father had married again, that there was a
widow in this keep, but he had seen no sign of such a woman.
“Mother of God, why are you alone with this?” he
murmured, running a thumb gently down the side of her cheek. He felt her palm,
still trapped in his right hand, tremble against his. The heat of her fingers
and the warm silk of her skin stirred him afresh, making him forget all else.
Telling himself he was only doing this because his men
would otherwise consider him soft, he lowered his head and kissed her full on
the lips.
Only a few moments had passed since Guillelm had saved
her from the odious Thierry and claimed his reward of a kiss. In the final
instant, Alyson feared to allow him anything more than the most chaste of
embraces, afraid of revealing too much of her own feelings, but now his mouth
came down on hers and she was lost. As his lips brushed hers, she felt a shock
of feeling tingle down her body in an astonishing wave of heat. She felt his
arms clamp around her slender middle, gathering her closer, lifting her to him.
The great hall and the men gathered in it fell away to
her, there was only Guillelm and the strong yet tender embrace of his mouth.
She knew that she would probably regret it, but it was a wish come true.
Sighing, Alyson swayed against him, closing her eyes as the voluptuousness of his
kiss overcame all thought of her duty.
Guillelm, no more aware of the raucous cat calls of
his men than Alyson was, made himself break from their embrace. After Heloise
he had a horror of forcing himself on any girl—he had not had a woman for some
time—but now this slender black-haired maid was storming his defenses. Her lips
were so generous and sweet, and the way her hands brushed shyly against his
chest and shoulder as if she learning him was so fearless that he did not want
to let her go. He caught her back and swung her into his arms, conscious of a
terrifying instinct to bear this woman away somewhere private and alone and
have his way with her. He reached the staircase without knowing it, the
questions and comments from the men and soldiers in the hall bouncing off him
like rainwater.
She laid her head in the crook of his arm, her eyes
still closed, as if this was a dream for her. “Dragon,” she whispered. “My
golden dragon.”
And then he knew her. By her nickname for him and her
total fearlessness, and, when she opened her eyes, almost as if she had sensed
his recognition, by her solemn dark blue eyes. Eyes he had seen fixed on a
patch of herbs in her father’s kitchen garden, or on the stained glass windows
in church, or on his own hands and arms as she soothed his various cuts and
bruises from the practice field with her potions. He remembered her as a
studious child, quiet and serious, passionate about healing and wishing to tend
all living things, yet with a smile brighter than gold. He remembered a day in
the forest, when she had saved his life.
She was here with him again, in Hardspen and in that
moment of realization, Guillelm forgot all other grief and concern in a burst
of possessive pride and joy.
He kissed her again—he could not help himself. She was
the best part of his past and to see her now, safe and adult and even more
lovely made him want to laugh out loud in mingled astonishment and delight.
“Alyson,” he said, remembering as he named her how he
had loved to make her laugh. “How excellent is this! Alyson!”
She had been so still when concentrating on her herbs
and healing and yet so quick and nimble when they had run off together, racing
each other to the meadows and woods. As a tall gangling lad of nineteen he had
hoped to make his fortune, earn renown throughout Christendom and then return
to her father’s manor at Olverton Minor to marry her. But in the end that had
been a hopeless quest. Alyson’s father, Sir Henry, had seen to that.
The memory of his meeting with Sir Henry blazed through
Guillelm. Even after seven and a half years it was a bitter thing that left him
sickened inside. All his years in Holy Land he had fought to put the memory
behind him. He had thought he had succeeded, until tonight.
“I will never give my daughter to you, Guillelm de La
Rochelle,” Sir Henry had told him. “She is a thoughtful, clever girl who,
before she knew you, spoke of a sincere desire to enter the church as a nun.
Until she knew you, Guillelm, Alyson’s steadfast goal was to be a second
Hildegard of Bermersheim: a scholar and sacred mystic, a healer. You have
almost driven that noble aim from her head, with your endless talk of quests
and chivalry. My reeve tells me that you are much in her company, and often
without the presence of her nurse. Alyson is on the brink of womanhood. These outings
between you must stop—yes, I know they have been so far innocent but I have my
child’s reputation to consider, and my own.
“Not only that, but I have seen you on the practice
field—you are entirely too rash and wild. You will leave my sweet Alyson a
widow within six months and your reckless head rotting on a pike. You cannot
have her, and must never ask again.”
Soon after that painful and disastrous encounter,
Guillelm had announced his intention to go with Raymond of Poitiers to
Outremer.
“
Alyson of
Olverton.” Guillelm now gave the grown-up Alyson her title, at once entranced
and saddened that she should be here. She was glad to see him—but how long
would that last? How long would her innocent fearlessness of him last? He could
not bear to think of her turning from him with fear in those dark blue eyes,
the same blank-eyed fear he had seen in women’s faces while on campaign in
Outremer.
Slowly, with regret and no lessening of his own desire
for her, he left the small landing and, crouching slightly to avoid the low
roof-space, he carried her up the narrow spiral staircase to the chapel, where
a small candle was burning. He set her down carefully on the stone floor and,
so that his fingers would not linger too long on her, or give in to the violent
temptation to touch her again, he put his hands behind his back.
“Alyson.” He swallowed the urgent questions that he
wanted to ask— Was she well, had she ever thought of him while he had been away
in Outremer, was she still unmarried? —and asked just two things, both equally
pressing.
“Alyson, how is it that you are here? And why is there
an army pitched outside this castle?”
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In the year 1066, England struggles against Norman
invaders and two strangers cross paths on a pilgrimage fraught with peril—only
to discover a love worth any danger.
Battle-weary knight Marc de Sens has never encountered
a woman like Sunniva of Wereford: beautiful, brilliant, and miles above the
curs who call themselves her kin. Alas, she is promised to another and Marc's
obligation is to his three orphaned nieces. But when Sunniva's circumstances
suddenly change, Marc learns the truth about her "betrothal".
A rough-hewn knight so gentle with children intrigues
Sunniva, who never knew a kind word or caring touch from any man until Marc
rescued her from the grimmest of fates. When her loutish father and brothers
are killed, Sunniva is finally free, but her troubles are far from over.
Although Marc has appointed himself her protector, he has a dark secret—as well
as an uncanny ability to disarm her completely...
Chapter One
Northern England, September 1066.
"
Uncle
Marc! Is she not as beautiful as the sun? That is what her name means. She is
Sunniva, Sun-Gift. Do you not think she is like the sun?
"
"
Steady,
little one. You will wake your sisters. But yes, you are right. She is most
comely.
"
Ignoring the powerful temptation to look
where Alde was pointing, Marc tucked the ends of his big traveling cloak around
his excited niece and encouraged the child to lie down again by doing so
himself. A swift, anxious glance confirmed that Judith and Isabella were
sleeping, sprawled under his cloak, their small faces sunburned with weeks of
travel. Isabella was sucking her thumb. The day had been long, the riding hard
and tiring. He prayed she would sleep through, free of nightmares.
Just one night, Lord Christ. As a mercy to
her, and to her sisters.
"Uncle Marc?" Alde whispered,
tugging on her lower lip, the pupil of her left eye sliding towards her small,
faintly hooked nose as she fought her body's weariness, "Can I have—"
A tiny snore escaped her pouting mouth.
Marc waited a moment, watching his charges.
His brother had spoken of the "fierce love" a parent feels for a
child: in these past months he had come to understand what Roland meant. He
would kill for these three.
Beside him a female peddler, as gnarled as
the sticks she carried for sale on her back, snorted and shifted closer to the
central fire. Turning carefully so as not to disturb Isabella, Marc lounged on
his belly, one hand absently rubbing his aching spine as he scanned the
company.
Two and twenty figures, hunched in various
attitudes of slumber, some snoring, most silent, were ranged about the fire,
their dun and dust-stained clothes orange in its fading glow. Outside the
ruined, roofless square fort—an old Roman castle, according to their escorts—he
could hear the night-guards walking and talking softly. So far, the pilgrim
party he was part of had journeyed in safety, although he slept with his sword
close to hand. Even main roadways such as the one they traveled on were haunted
by footpads, ever-ready to prey upon the unwary or unprotected. There were
rumored to be horse-thieves hereabouts in these rough lands of the north and
worse still, slavers.
He knew of one who would be a great prize
to such creatures. Blonde —such fair eyebrows and skin must betoken blonde
hair, although he had never seen so much as a strand of it: Sunniva was a
modest girl who hid her tresses under a plain russet head square. Lithe, with a
tumbler's body: that much he could guess from her graceful walk, though her
robe hung on her as if made for a larger woman. And her face… Marc smiled in
the semi-darkness. Even at a distance, she was more than comely, she was
spectacular, a prize—
"Sunniva! Damn you, wench!"
The carping voice broke into Marc's guilty
day-dream, causing him to stare where he had sworn he would not. Straight
across the fire from where he and his three darlings were snuggled into a
corner, their backs safe against the fire-proof stone walls, a hulking
scarecrow of a man sat bolt upright. Cloaks and scraps of precious cloth and
even tapestry rolled off him, scattering like chaff as he whirled his beefy
arms. "Here, girl, attend me! Look at me, girl! You should not be
sleeping!"
"Not when my leg troubles me!"
Marc finished for Cena under his breath, clenching both hands into fists as he
fought his own temper. Since he and his girls had joined the pilgrim party five
days ago he had grown weary of this graybeard's mewling complaints—the
Englishman moaned more readily than six-year-old Isabella.
"Is it your knee, father, or your
arm?" his daughter whispered, rising to her knees, her hands outstretched.
Her face and form were in shadow, but even so she made a sinuous, lissome shape
that instantly made Marc's body stiffen, his heart quickening further at the
sound of her warm, soft voice.
"Shall I rub the joints for you? I
still have some of the comfrey compress I made—"
"Bring wine," was Cena's
graceless interruption, "and do not dally."
He gave her a spiteful shove that had
Sunniva rocking on her heels but she did not complain —the wonder was, she
never did.
"Of course, father. Is there anything
else you desire?"
"Why are you wearing old clothes? You
look like the lowest pot-scourer, not a lady of means!"
"But father, as you have often told
me, I have no means and it is my duty to serve you."
"Aye, and your brothers, remember
that!"
"How could I forget, father?"
"My God, when you smile that way you
look as sinful as your mother… Why that rag of a head-rail, girl? Do you mean
to shame me? I want you to look good to men; you're no use to me ugly. Your
blue head- square is better."
"It must be washed, father. Is there
anything else?"
"More wine!" Cena's broken teeth
were visible as black patches in his mouth as, grimacing, he raised a scarred
hand. "Now!"
"I am going." Seemingly unafraid
of her father's threat, Sunniva bent close to him. "The dressing on your
knee, is it comfortable?"
"No thanks to you—I said you had bound
it too tight. And your brother's arm is oozing again."
"I have looked to Edgar's hurt,
father, and to his horse's."
"Wine! Where is my wine? Must I tell
you again, idle slut?"
"Of course." Sunniva drew back,
deftly avoiding Cena's flailing fist. "Wine will lift your spirits and if
you are a little 'hazy' mounting your horse tomorrow, I am sure the saints will
protect you. Saint Cuthbert will surely reach down from heaven to save you from
falling on your rump." She raised two elegant, ghostly hands, paler than
moonbeams in the guttering firelight, and made the sign of the cross. "I
will bring the comfrey, too."
"Get on, chatterer!"
Cena subsided under his mound of make-shift
bedding and Marc quickly closed his eyes, in case she noticed him watching. As
with many of these father-daughter exchanges he found himself grinning and
wondering: she had bested Cena in words yet again, but did that old misery
realize she teased him?
I would do much more than teasing, Marc
vowed, his mood darkening as he listened to her lightly stepping amidst the
sleeping pilgrims towards the baggage heaped in the doorway. Only the girl's
own unfailing good humor stopped him intervening: he longed to take on Cena and
Cena's three useless sons, who, as usual, slept on through these nightly
conflicts.
What did Cena mean, "I want you to
look good to men"? Surely such a beauty as Sunniva would be betrothed—
A tiny snuffle close to Marc had him raking
his head round swiftly, but Isabella was all right, peaceful and tranquil,
still fast asleep. Kneading his wry neck, Marc settled onto his side, his eyes drawn
inevitably to the other, golden girl.
I do not spy, he told himself. I look out
for Sunniva because her father and brothers do not.
She was at the saddles and packs now, a
small shimmer of movement against sooty stones, carefully easing her eldest
brother off one of the trunks, gently ruffling his dirty-blond hair to calm his
muttering slumber. To his chagrin—he was no longer a gangling youth—Marc found
himself blushing, envying the brother her touch. In his own mind, he instantly
imagined those slim fingers stroking him—a pleasantly distracting thought.
Suddenly, he saw her direct a single, piercing glance to Cena. The fellow was
snoring again.
Sunniva acted fast. Her hands burrowing
nimbly inside the trunk, she retrieved wine flask and salve and then she was
off.
She was going outside!
Even as Marc marveled at such folly, he was
straightening, seizing his sword. Striding over the peddler woman, a scrawny
monk and a serving-lad with bare, wind-chapped legs, he reached the other side
of the fire before realizing he had misjudged the moment: Sunniva was standing
by the threshold, breathing in the sweet night breeze.
She was merely snatching an instant for
herself, Marc guessed, feeling foolish at his over-reaction. Reluctant to
intrude further on her, he turned to go back.
A slight shift in the air was his only
guide that anything was amiss. With a warrior's quickness, Marc whirled about,
freeing his sword, feinting a stumble, lunging his counter-attack. His blade
slashed through shadows and there were only the grunting sleepers round his
feet. Beyond the hot-iron glow of the banked-down fire was an utter darkness,
where any creature, thief or troll, might linger. He squinted into it, looking
for anything stirring, listening intently for the rasp of metal, his head full
of old Breton stories of deadly night-elves, lethal elf-shot and the evil of
the devil.
Isabella and the others, were they still
asleep? Safe? Was he failing them again?
"God help me!" The whisper burst
from his clenched lips and was answered at once by a flash of gold, bright as
lightning, and a choked cry.
His purse, its long strings newly sawn
through, was fixed to one of the few remaining cross-beams, scarcely two
spears' lengths from his own head. Outside there was a rush of fading
footsteps, quickly lost in the still night as the thwarted cut-purse ran off
the road into cover.
Marc was still staring at what had nailed
his purse to the beam. Slowly, as in a dream, he sheathed his sword and freed
the long dagger, catching the purse as it fell.
"He will have escaped over what is
left of the roof by now," Sunniva observed softly. "I spotted him
scrambling in by the same way, just before you sensed him and reacted, but
could not warn you in time to be on your guard. Our night-watchers missed him,
or never expected a thief to come in that way. I am sorry."
"I heard him leaving." Amazed
that she was talking to him—to him!— Marc stretched out the arm that was
clutching the dagger. As she stepped closer to take it back, he wanted to
snatch it away, snatch her away.
Rapidly, he schooled his expression into
what he hoped was a polite smile and said, "Thank you. That was…" He
hesitated as a thousand questions flooded through his mind. How had she done
that? How had she learned such throwing skill? How had she seen anything?
"That was unexpected," he finished lamely.
"I see right well in the dark,"
she said, taking the knife back most carefully, as if she had guessed part of
his thoughts.
"Better than most. Far better than
me."
She smiled at him for the first time then,
another lightning flash in the darkness of their makeshift sleeping quarters,
and he felt a bolt of pleasure strike deep in his loins.
"You need apologize to me for
nothing," he grunted, retying his purse to his belt for something to do.
She could have ridden over him on a war-horse and if she smiled that way he
would have been smitten afresh. "Nothing."
She looked troubled, but did not answer.
Marc knew he should say something: about his nieces,
perhaps, or the changeable English weather, or the pilgrimage they were both on
for their different reasons. What were hers? He almost asked her, but then the
moon broke through the gray ramp of clouds and lit her fully.
He almost gasped—it was the first time he had been
this close to her and, even as Alde had said, her sheer beauty was unearthly.
He had seen no one to compare with her except for the glittering icons of Constantinople,
city of wonders. Like an empress in those sacred pictures, Sunniva glowed.
Like the icons, she drew him first with her eyes.
Large and bright, they were the color of the Breton seas of his childhood, a
brilliant blue-green, flecked with gray. Mermaid's eyes, he thought, glimpsing
the pensive dreamer beneath the clear, direct gaze. The skin around them was as
flawless as a pearl but briefly, as she blushed and gave him a swift warm
smile, he saw her eye corners crinkle and knew how she would look when old: a
laughing Madonna, with a long, straight nose, limpid eyes and a bountiful
mouth, red and sweet as a pomegranate.