Authors: Ann Lawrence
She boosted the babe up to the window. “Look, Felice. The
clouds seem to touch the towers, they’re so low. It shall rain before morning.”
But Felice would not be amused, nor soothed.
“Walk ‘er about, miss,” Alice said. “So an old body can
rest.”
Cristina smiled. “I’ll take her for a stroll about the
bailey, if it pleases you.”
The old woman grinned, revealing she had lost another front
tooth, and draped a mantle about her. Cristina tucked the squalling infant into
her sling with a kiss.
“Good night wiv ye. Find a corner when she settles and put
her to breast. Ye’ll save me ears ifn ye do.”
* * * * *
Durand turned over on his back and looked up at the
glowering sky through his open shutters. Why could he not sleep? A lump in his
mattress felt as large as a millstone. He shifted his shoulders, but failed to
get comfortable. He sat up and pounded the lump into submission. As he lay back
he heard the wail of an infant. Only one babe dwelled in the castle—or one he
had noticed—but the child and her nurse resided in the east tower. Mayhap there
were dozens of infants about. There were so many guests now, he could not keep them
and their retainers straight.
He rose and went to the window, propped his arms on the wide
stone sill, and looked out. Cool air washed over his bare skin. The bailey was
filled with folk as if it were daylight. Men worked through the night to see
everything was in readiness for the king’s invasion of Normandy. He could see
the glow of the forge and hear the ring of the hammer on the anvil. Thunder
rumbled over the distant hills as if God, too, readied for war.
Cristina le Gros crossed the bailey.
“What the devil is she about?” He drew on his clothing and
thrust his dagger into his belt. Within moments he stood in the bailey. He saw
her by the stable, no purpose in her manner. Indeed, she wandered, swinging her
skirts side to side in what Luke would surely call a fairy dance. He decided it
was her way of soothing the infant.
“What the devil am
I
doing here?” he asked himself as
he strode to the stables. His steps slowed when she sat on a bench, nearly
invisible in her dark mantle among the shadows cast by torches on the stable
wall. He propped his shoulder by his destrier’s stall in his own pool of
darkness. As he watched, Cristina unlaced her gown—slowly, as a woman might to
entice her lover—and bared her breast. He held his breath at the alabaster gleam
of her skin, the full roundness of her flesh, the dark point of her nipple,
which she offered to the child.
Marion’s child
.
His groin throbbed with desire for Cristina. More confused
emotions filled him for the child. Those he set aside.
“I’m as much a dog as Luke,” he said softly. “I’ve been too
long without a female if the mere sight of a nursing woman raises my lust.”
But flesh was flesh, and she had abundant and beautiful
breasts. He could almost feel them in his hands. Yet if she were but a
bountifully made woman, he could resist her. Certainly he resisted Lady
Sabina’s sweet tits when faced with them each day. Nay, he had lost himself to
Mistress le Gros’ soothing touch and misguided arguments on Aristophanes.
His horse poked his head from the stable door and whickered
a greeting. Durand stroked the horse’s velvety nose. “I am seduced by
philosophy, my fine fellow.” But, if he were truthful, he was equally drawn to
Cristina by those breasts that would cushion a man’s troubled head in heavenly
softness.
She murmured something to the babe and shifted the child
from one breast to the other. Her hair was loose, in a fall of waves to her
waist.
“Ah, Marauder, I am lost,” he whispered at the horse’s ear.
The chapel bells rang the hour. Twelve. He stroked the horse’s
head and nourished his parched soul. When she finished the feeding, he’d go.
Until then, he could no more move his gaze from her bent head or creamy skin,
exposed further as her gown slipped off her shoulder, than a starving man could
move from a table laden with food.
* * * * *
Cristina tucked Felice into her sling. “You greedy little
pig. Why could you not eat so in our chamber?” She rose and, giving in to
curiosity at the peal of the bells, walked not toward the east tower, but to
the west.
Several men hurried by on some business, heads together,
their voices unnaturally loud in the darkness. A gust of wind lifted her hem
and snapped the fabric against her calves.
Two men passed her: Lord Penne and Sir Luke.
“Bother. They go together! Now I’ll never know.” But the men
parted company, Luke heading for the chapel, Lord Penne turning aside to the
great hall.
Mystery solved. Sir Luke met Lady Sabina. Penne must have
been fetching his love potion. She did not need to see the assignation, and so,
satisfied that Lady Oriel was to sleep in her husband’s arms, she turned and
collided with Lord Durand and tumbled to the cobbles.
“Felice!” she cried. She pulled back the swaddling and found
the babe still asleep. Lord Durand’s strong hands swept her back onto her feet.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, raking her hair back from her
face.
“Nay. Aye. I don’t know.” She shook her head. Her bottom
smarted most painfully, but she could not tell him that!
The sky opened. Rain pelted her head and shoulders. She
yelped and bent over to shelter Felice from the onslaught. Lord Durand grabbed
her arm and dragged her the few steps into the shelter of the chapel. It was as
cold and damp as a crypt.
Her altar oil filled the chapel with the scent of sage. No
priest said Mass, no penitents knelt at prayers. No Lady Sabina embraced Sir
Luke. They were alone. Where had Luke gone?
Lord Durand laughed as he shook the rain from his head.
“We’re trapped.”
The rain fell in a solid wall of water, formed a curtain
across the chapel entrance, and gushed in rivers across the bailey stones. She
stared out at the night, black, cold. Private.
“How fares the child?” he asked.
“Blissfully asleep. I came out because she’s been fretting
all night. Now, when she should by rights be frightened silly, she’s at
complete peace.”
“Why should she be frightened?”
Cristina looked up at him. His hair was wet, his gray eyes
dark shadows in his face. Water beaded his skin. “I-I don’t know. The rain. Our
fall.” Her every sense was on fire in his presence. His scent filled her head,
negated the powerful altar oils, drew her as if she had never drunk the
resistance potion.
“But she’s not injured?
You’re
not injured?” He
lifted her chin.
Simon had done so but a day before. Simon’s touch left her
cold; this man’s enthralled her. He was naught but a tale one told in old age.
A tale of a lord who spoke to her as an equal, aroused her senses, made her
wish to be a fine lady. It was a sin to think of him at all…a greater sin to
think of the hard line of his jaw, his scent, here in God’s chapel.
“Where?” he asked softly.
“Where?” she whispered. His fingers were warm on her chin.
“Where are you injured?”
“Oh,” she stepped away, breaking the contact. “I’m not
injured.”
“Nonsense. You took quite a spill—”
The soft scrape of a shoe on stone interrupted him. Turning,
Lord Durand used one hand to shift her behind him.
Cristina felt the pressure of Lord Durand’s hand and she
heeded it, backing into the wall of water, and out into the night.
Her heart raced. She ran, mantle close about the child, to
the hall. As she hurried through the vast space, filled with sleeping men and
women on pallets, she moaned. Her spine and bottom ached miserably. Her head
throbbed on each step up to her chamber. Her heart thudded like a hammer on an
anvil.
Had the person in the chapel seen her—seen Lord Durand
touching her? Was it Luke? He’d surely say naught, but what if Lady Sabina had
arrived and witnessed their exchange? Cristina cringed when she thought of that
lady’s tart tongue.
She tiptoed about for a moment, then took less care, for
Alice snored heavily on a pallet in the corner, a cloud of ale fumes issuing
forth with every breath. Felice slipped her fingers into her mouth when placed
on her back in her cradle and made her own puffing sounds of deep sleep. “You
imp.
Now
you sleep.”
Sodden garments clung to Cristina’s legs and back. She
stripped them and laid them out over a bench by the fire. After donning a clean
shift, she knelt there to dry her hair.
The thread of her thoughts wound from Lord Penne, to Luke,
to Lord Durand.
A lady’s note. An assignation
.
All was suddenly clear.
Lord Durand
met the Lady
Sabina in the chapel.
“You’re a fool, Cristina,” she whispered to the crackling
flames. “Lord Penne must have retrieved the note for Lord Durand so he’d not be
seen to receive it, and Luke merely cleared the chapel for his brother. They
work in concert to aid their master.” A tangle snagged her fingers. “Of course
his friends would see their lord was not disturbed. Of course ‘tis Lord Durand
who meets with Lady Sabina. Lady Marion is not long enough dead to allow him to
openly court her.” She rose hastily to her feet. “Oh, this wretched hair. Ugly
as old wool!”
Cristina tossed back the lid of a small box that contained
all she owned: precious sewing needles, a length of ribbon from Lady Marion, a
horn comb which she plucked up and yanked through her snarled tresses. “What
concern of mine is it that Lord Durand makes love in the chapel?”
She threw the comb on the table, where it landed in the rose
oil. The dish tipped, spilling the oil across the table. “Oh, a plague on fine
ladies,” she muttered. Tears pricked at her eyes. “Look what I’ve done! Hours
of work wasted! The oil’s ruined!” She dropped a length of linen on the mess to
prevent it from dripping off the table.
Her hair still damp and tangled, she threw herself on her
bed. The canopy overhead had a rent, chewed by a mouse she imagined. She rolled
to her side, punched her pillow, sat up, climbed out of bed. In two steps she
was at her table and had retrieved the comb and wiped it clean. With
painstaking care, she mopped up the oil and tidied the worktable. She scrubbed
the top, then folded the rose oil-soaked cloth and placed it exactly in the
center of the table.
With her agitation’s abatement, the wind outside died. The
sudden silence drew her to the window. She flung open the shutters and stared
down into the bailey, but saw naught but shrouds of mist. At last, she
stretched out on her bed atop the coverlet, the damp air stirring across the
chamber and over her heated skin.
“Get to sleep, Cristina.
You
shall be gathering roses
tomorrow at dawn whilst finer ladies rest from a surfeit of lovemaking.”
Durand crossed his arms over his chest and tried to ignore
the water dripping down his neck. “How do you come to be here, Simon? Were you
somehow occupied that you did not heed the closing of the gates?”
“Ah, my lord.” Simon licked his lips. “I did not expect to
meet you here. I’m to…that is, I’m to meet…” Simon dipped his head and thrust
his hands up into his capacious sleeves.
“You may as well say who you’re to meet, as I’ll know in but
a moment.”
“Then I must confess I’m to meet a woman.”
“A woman? When you’ve a wife as pleasing as yours, you’re
seeking after another?” Durand took a quick glance behind him to be sure
Cristina was gone. He heard nothing to indicate she lingered, and he hoped
she’d not heard Simon’s words.
Simon glanced about. “My lord, we’re both men who have
traveled much. You must know that ‘tis ofttimes necessary to seek some solace
with another. After all, my Cristina is quite occupied with your daughter.”
“If her duties are a burden to you, I shall release her.”
“Nay! Please. We strive only to serve you. Don’t be hasty!
Cristina would be heartbroken to be set aside as nurse!”
“Is not the setting aside by a husband—” Durand broke off.
Lady Sabina stood in the chapel entrance. He knew her by the embroidered mantle
she wore. Rain glistened off the scarlet hood in the meager light of the chapel
candles.
“Forgive my intrusion,” Durand said. He stepped past Lady
Sabina and strode out into the rain. It poured in icy discomfort down his
shoulders. He made a search of the bailey, but Mistress le Gros was long gone.
He headed for her tower to see if she was injured from her
fall, then hesitated. Would she read the knowledge on his face that her husband
strayed?
What ailed le Gros? And what had he to offer Sabina?
“I am a hypocrite,” he whispered with a glance up at the
light that gleamed through Cristina’s shutters. “I’d have done more than touch
Mistress le Gros if her husband had not come upon the scene.” He could feel the
smoothness of her skin, catch her scent on the wind—imagination, he knew. If
the truth were known, he would have taken her there in the chapel even if he
was to be damned for all eternity.
In his chamber, Durand paced from corner to corner. Every
step on the rushes reminded him of Cristina. The scented soap in a silver bowl,
stamped with the raven, filled his head, made him ache to call for a bath even
as midnight drifted toward dawn.
He fell into a chair. “Ah, Marion, who am I to condemn you
for your lovers? Surely, I’m as dishonorable to your memory and to Simon’s vows
as you were to ours. If Cristina put out her hand, I would take it up.”
Several hours later, he still stared into the hearth fire,
desires rampant. “
Jesu
.” He rose and threw open the door. With a brisk
nod, he passed the sentry at the foot of his stairs and then walked quietly
through the hall to the east tower. He would see if the child was injured from the
fall in the bailey. At Cristina’s door, he hesitated but a moment before he
opened it.
The act took him past some boundary heretofore he had never
violated.
The scent of roses filled the air.
He felt as if he’d stepped into a rose garden. And in the center
of the bower lay Cristina, curled on her bed, one hand beneath her cheek,
childlike, her lips slightly parted. Innocent. What would he make of her if he
persuaded her to his bed?
An adulteress
.
Would she come if he asked? He sensed something between them,
like the perfume when she passed that lingered in his head, an intangible thing
not seen, but felt low in his belly.
The shift she wore gleamed white in the chamber lit only by
the lingering embers of a banked fire. He roamed her chamber, skimming his
fingers over her mantle draped on a bench, still wet from their dash across the
bailey. The cradle lay in deep darkness, the babe indistinguishable from the
shadow. Alice snored noisily on a corner pallet, blankets about her head.
Durand returned to the bed. His body ached for the woman
lying there, her hair tangled across her pillow—hair that would flow through
his hands like silk. What would it be like to bury his face in that hair?
The blood of desire filled his body.
His breath caught in his throat as she moaned softly and
shifted, rolling to her back, her breasts now straining the cloth, dark nipples
thrust against the linen.
Against all sense, all the crying fears of discovery that
webbed the night, he moved to the head of the bed.
In his dreams, in the days to come, he would touch her
cheek. She would open her eyes, lift her arms, and welcome him to the warmth of
her bed…and body.
In this, the cold hour before dawn, he retreated to his
chamber, where he watched the morning rise over the land, cool air washing his
face. Glass had once filled his window until Marion had thrown a dish at his
head. Thrown it because he had locked her garden and banished her lover.
Tossing open his coffer, he dug to the bottom, to a painted
box carved with ravens. A box of keys. He immediately saw what he wanted—a
large iron key, rusty with disuse.
* * * * *
He found Cristina later that morning near the castle wall in
the cook’s garden, the edge of her hem damp with dew, gathering wild roses in a
basket. Her skirt swayed with her walk as she bent and cut the blooms. He
watched her lift each flower to her face, then skim it across her cheek before
placing it carefully in the basket.
Her profile was serene, her cheeks tinted with the same
color as the flowers she held.
“Mistress le Gros?” He waited for her to look up.
She turned. “My lord.” She dropped into a deep obeisance but
kept her gaze on her basket of flowers.
Two kitchen boys ran past, chasing one another. The scent of
baking bread filled the air and yet, he thought he could smell the roses in her
hands. He sensed a disquiet in her that told him she was not resistant to him
or his touch of the night before in the chapel.
Several knights, strangers, cut across the kitchen garden
paths on the way to the stable. He waited silently until the men had passed,
then cleared his throat. “The cook has little of use to you, as I now see.”
“‘Tis enough, my lord,” she answered.
“Nay, I believe I’ve been hasty in denying you the castle
garden. It is quite overgrown, but should you succeed in making something of
it, you’ll have my admiration.”
He held out the key. She stared at it, but made no move to
take it from his palm.
“What changed your mind, my lord?” She bit her lip. Her hair
no longer curled enticingly about her temples or lay loose on her shoulders.
Instead, its glory was hidden beneath her headcovering. “My lord?” she prodded.
He shrugged, unable to give her an answer that did not shout
his desire. He’d tried to think of something to say should she or others ask
just this question, and still after hours of thought had nothing logical, nor
any quote from Aristophanes to offer. And because he had no answer, he said
nothing.
Finally, she reached out and touched the cold metal.
“Take it,” he said softly.
She raised her dark eyes to his face.
“Do what you will,” he continued, the words a harsh rasp in
his throat.
Her fingers were warm as she drew the key across his palm.
He shivered. Was it his imagination that her fingertips lingered a moment on
his skin? Nay, he made what he wanted—nay
needed
—of the encounter.
He strode away.
* * * * *
Lady Sabina lay in wait for him in an alcove off the great
hall. He gritted his teeth as she stepped before him, blocking his way to his
bedchamber. Exhaustion filled him with ire.
“Ah, my lord, how pleased I am to find you alone. These
barons, they occupy you to my disadvantage. Must you all jabber so on your lost
holdings, the king?” She hooked her arm through his and with a gentle tug
maneuvered him into the alcove. With difficulty, he concealed his impatience.
“Is it not time we came to an agreement, Durand?”
“An agreement?” He gently moved her hand lower on his thigh.
“Aye. One of mutual benefit. I could oversee the keep for
you whilst King John is in attendance. You must admit it is a demanding occupation,
mistress of a castle overrun with courtiers.”
“I have Lady Oriel to act for me,” Durand pointed out while
parrying her busy fingers that crept up his arm.
“Lady Oriel has expressed her concerns that she’s not able
to see to the task. She’s never feted a king, whilst I have traveled with him
on numerous occasions. He’s quite demanding, you know.”
“Then pray help her.” Durand crossed his arms on his chest.
Lady Sabina burst into laughter. “I’ve no intention of
practicing good deeds, my lord. Whatever
help
I offer, ‘twould be
foolish to give it without some reward.”
“What reward would you require?” Her hand flattened on his
thigh. He clamped his on hers.
“It has been overly long since I’ve been under the care of a
man such as you.”
“There are many in the keep—or John’s court, for that
matter—who would be pleased to offer you protection. I cannot do so.”
“Cannot? Or will not?” She rose and paced before his bench.
“We’re well suited; your properties would enhance mine.”
He knew her father’s holdings suffered badly from poor
harvests of late. “I’ve little without my French properties—”
She waved the truth away with a sharp gesture. “You will
soon regain it all. We have no husband or wife to say us nay. You’ve a cock
that wants to crow and I wake at dawn. What holds you back?”
Durand rose quickly. “Is there not a merchant cock you
already possess?”
“Merchant?” she knitted her brows. “Who wants a merchant
when a lord is about?”
“Indeed.” He pushed past her.
* * * * *
Penne rolled from bed. He hid the stone bottle Luke had
given him. It would not do for servants to ask about it.
“Penne?” Oriel murmured. “Where are you?”
She rubbed her hand across the bedding, and he imagined her
hand on him. In a trice he was in her embrace.
He kissed her breathless. She sat up and pushed him away.
“Come, sir, I’m exhausted. Whatever was in the potion Luke obtained for you has
made you more randy than Cook’s goat.” But she planted a kiss on his nose.
“Do you feel different after you drink your love potion?” he
asked.
Oriel shook her hair from her shoulders. She took his hand
and placed it on her belly. “Nay. You know, Mistress le Gros said I would do
better to depend upon one sweet moment—”
“How would you know one sweet moment from another?” he
asked, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Are not all our moments
sweet?” He pulled his hand away and rose. “If what we do does not please you—”
Oriel leapt from the bed. She caught hold of the tunic he
was about to pull over his head. “Nay, my love. I did not mean it that way!”
“What way did you mean it? You said, you’d do better to
depend upon one sweet moment. If they’re not all sweet then say so.”
Her lip trembled. Tears flooded her eyes.
“Oh, my love,” he pulled her into his arms. “Forgive me. I’m
not thinking on my words.”
“Nor I on mine,” she whispered at his ear. “Every moment we
have is sweet. Pray, forget what I said. Come back to bed.”
He kissed her forehead, but made an excuse and dressed
rather than return to bed, and she knew he would not forget.
* * * * *
Durand lasted only one day before entering the castle
garden. At first glance, it appeared as overgrown as always. But if one looked,
one could see that certain plants stood clear of weeds, the earth loose about
their bases, some trimmed or pruned.
As he tried to appear to be just wandering, he noted those
beds tended, the clove pinks, primrose—plants useful to Cristina’s business. If
he inquired, he imagined he would find that Cristina commanded several of his
men to do the work. If he came upon them, he’d offer his blessing to their
tasks.
He heard her before he saw her. She sang some tuneless air
to the babe, he supposed. Ducking under a vine-tangled tree branch, he came to
a patch of soft, scythed grass. The overhanging branches cast everything in a
watery green. Cristina knelt by a flower bed, digging with a pointed stick.
She did not look up. “Ah, you’ve finally arrived, Alice. I
began to despair of you. Look, this lavender can be saved. ‘Tis as I thought.
Bring the babe, my breasts ache she sleeps so long!”
Durand grinned. He crouched down over the basket holding
Felice and, with great awkwardness, lifted the sleeping child. Holding the babe
as if she would bite—not sure she would not—he walked across to where Cristina
knelt. She was jerking open her laces. Hastily, as the child squirmed and began
to bubble with noise, and before Cristina bared herself too far, he held out
the child and spoke. “Mistress le Gros.”
“My lord!” Cristina scrambled to her feet, pulling her gown
together at the throat. “I-I thought you were Alice.”
He grinned. “The babe is heavier than I expected,” he said
as she took the child from him.
Cristina returned his smile. “She is, in fact, rather small,
my lord.” The child rooted at her breast, and Cristina turned slightly away
from him and sank to the grass.
He walked to the lavender bed and went down on one knee to
inspect it. “Hmm. I expected a babe would weigh about as much as a rather fat
capon.”
Her answering laughter delighted him.
“A capon, my lord? A fat pup, mayhap.”
The child quieted and he assumed she fed, though he resisted
the urge to see for himself.
“Did you come to inspect my work, my lord?”
“Inspect? Nay, I came to see if there was aught
salvageable.”