Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] (34 page)

He nodded his acquiescence, and together they left the road and headed into the cool and welcome shade. Ferns curled out of the soft, damp ground beneath their feet. The stream itself babbled and burbled over rocks worn smooth. Brown butterflies swooped and dipped, and the birdsong of wren and lark filled the air.

How wonderful it would have been if this had simply been a companionable ramble through a wood. How he would have enjoyed simply watching her walk, with her poise and grace, even when she was wading through bracken. He would have been comfortable with their silence, listening to the birds.

Instead, all he could think about was her discomfort and the fact that he was the cause of it. Tonight, they would be sleeping on the ground, without so much as a tent. He had done so many times, but surely she had not.

She deserved to be mounted on a fine and dainty mare, and dressed in fine clothing, not the plain woolen gown that had once been Kiera’s. He would have been content to be a common soldier in her escort, watching over her.

No, he thought as they both crouched beside the running water. He would never be content when he was near her, knowing she was as far removed from him as the moon was from the earth.

With a hunger that had nothing to do with his belly, he watched Isabelle cup her hand to drink. As she lifted it to bring the water to her lips, the liquid trickled through her fingers, over her slender wrist and down the cuff of her gown. Her throat moved as if it was being stroked while she drank, and the water that spilled from her lips glistened on her smooth neck.

His own thirst for water was forgotten, and he began to wonder if Ingar might have been right about his reason for refusing a guard of Norsemen. Perhaps, deep in his heart, he did yearn to be alone with her, at least for a little while.

How great a fool was he, to torment himself this way?

She reached down and brought more cool water to the back of her neck, patting it.

Oh, God’s wounds, how he wanted to press his lips there!

With a luxurious sigh, she turned toward him and gave him a bright smile. “I almost feel grateful to Osburn for cutting my hair. It’s much cooler on … my … neck.”

Her words trailed off as she met his gaze. The silence stretched, broken only by the babble of the stream and the birds above.

At that time and in that place, it was as if nothing else existed. Just them, alone. He was with the woman he admired more than any other. The woman he wanted more than any other. The woman he loved.

Who was looking at him with her lips parted, her breathing quick, and in her eyes, a look that made him wonder if she did feel…

He turned away abruptly and splashed the frigid water on his face until he was once more master of his roiling, tumultuous, hopeless feelings.

Or at least calm enough to act it.

A
s they returned to the road, Isabelle knew she should have been happy, and getting happier with every step that took her closer to Bellevoire.

And if Alexander DeFrouchette was about to pay a heavy price for getting her there, if he lost some of his freedom with his obligation to Ingar, was that not small recompense for what he had done to her? After all, he was not going to be executed, or even imprisoned. He would be with Ingar, and soon enough, he would probably be getting drunk with that band of Norsemen, singing their mournful dirges about Woden and Thor and the glorious days of the past.

She tried to picture that, but she could not. All she could see in her mind’s eye was Alexander standing by himself in the prow of Ingar’s ship, looking utterly, miserably alone.

When their gazes had locked at the stream, it had not been the fierce warrior she had seen but the lonely, vulnerable man who wanted to be more than his birth had made him. Who wanted something else, something that seemed to tremble in the very air between them…

Something she could not give. He had chosen his path, and it had been the wrong one. That could not be changed.

But had he chosen his father? His mother, with her deluded passion? Had he asked for poverty, despair, or the hope that a sly man had offered him, playing upon his desire to rise above the lot to which his birth had consigned him?

That was not her fault, either, yet he had not hesitated to take her. Because he thought she was Allis, the woman who had jilted his father for another.

He had tried to undo what he had done, and he had kept his word that she would not be harmed. Yet did she owe him any gratitude for finally doing what was right, when he should have done it all along?

She slid him a glance, watching his grim face as he strode beside her. If she had been born in his place, what would she have done?

He caught her eye, and she quickly looked away. “It is going to be dusk soon,” he said. “We should find a place to make camp.”

He turned off the road again and waited for her to follow. They went toward the stream, which was wider here, and came upon a small clearing bordered by bellflowers and thistles and a few yellow primroses.

“This is a good place,” he muttered. He put down the leather pouch and, crouching, pulled out a small brown loaf, which he handed to her. He also had cheese wrapped in a cloth and a small wineskin. “It is not much.”

“It’s enough,” she said, sitting on a large rock and eagerly eating what he handed to her. The wine was welcome, too.

He joined her, sitting on another rock a few feet away, and they ate and drank in silence. Above them, a few birds sang, and a wren swooped from branch to branch nearby. It was as if they were two people making a leisurely journey together, like a pilgrimage to Canterbury that many people undertook in the warm weather.

When Isabelle was finished, she washed in the stream and drank some of the cool, clear water, too.

Refreshed, she turned around … and gasped with shock, for Alexander was on his feet, his sword drawn. Alert for danger, she scanned the trees.

“If I was going to kill you, my lady, I would have done so before now.”

“I thought we were under attack.”

His bright blue eyes flashed, and his lips curled in a little smile. “I was about to start building you some shelter from the dew. The low branch of that oak tree will make a fine ridgepole.”

He nodded at the large, ancient tree to her left, then started to cut some branches from a nearby chestnut tree. “These will do for walls.”

She watched him at his work and found herself enjoying the sight of his strong, easy strokes, and the way he moved with a grace that came from strength. His body was truly a warrior’s, and in his arms she had felt that warrior’s strength and power. When he had kissed her, she’d known his warrior’s passion. When he had held her, she had known what it was to be truly desired.

When she returned to Bellevoire, she would once again be only Isabelle, Allis’s sister. Would there ever be another man who would kiss her with such heated need? Would any other man ever make her feel that she could reward him with only a smile?

Would any other man give up his freedom for her?

Such thoughts availed her nothing. She must return to Bellevoire, and he must return to Ingar, or wherever else he chose, once she was safe. They would never see each other again, and she should be glad of that.

She tried to put any other thoughts out of her mind as she gathered the cut branches.

“Sit, my lady. Leave this to me.”

She kept gathering. “As you should know by now, I am not a helpless, mewling creature. It is my shelter, after all, and if I help you, the sooner it will be built. It doesn’t take much skill to lay branches.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I should know better than to try to order you.”

The matter settled, Isabelle took an armload of the leafy branches and began to lay them so that they leaned against the long, low oak branch, like the sides of one of the Norsemen’s tents.

Alexander brought others and, with more methodical care than she had expected, began to fill in any spaces she had left.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Many times.”

It was another glimpse of a hard life that had made a hard man.

She watched his hands as he set the branches in place—strong hands that she had assumed had come from years of wielding weapons. Lean hands that had so gently washed her face. Amazing hands that had stroked and caressed her, arousing her in ways that were wondrous and more exciting than anything she had known.

He caught her looking at them. She flushed with embarrassment to think that she had been staring, until he held them out to show her. “I have worked at many tasks, my lady,” he said without rancor. “Carpentry, masonry, fetching and carrying, even tossing rocks at birds to keep them from the seeds sown in springtime. I have worked from the time I was five years old. It is a peasant’s lot, and I was a peasant long before I got my sword and learned to fight. My hands are callused from those days, and will likely be for the rest of my life.”

She couldn’t help it. She just couldn’t. She had to touch him.

She took hold of his warm hand and examined it in the waning light. “Yet holding on to that rope was not easy, and it
did
hurt.” She touched the bruised pad of his right thumb, making him wince.

He pulled his hands away. “Yes—a little.”

“You men are all alike,” she gently admonished. “Afraid to admit that you’re hurt. Connor’s pulled his shoulder from the socket twice, and to hear him tell it, each time hurt no worse than a splinter.”

Without another word, Alexander went back to cutting branches.

She silently cursed herself for mentioning Connor at all.

“That can’t be good for your blade,” she said after they had worked for a while and the shelter was nearly finished.

“I’ll sharpen it in the morning.”

“I saw you doing that on the ship today. Denis said you do that every morning.”

“Yes.”

“You must cherish your sword.”

“It was a gift from my mother, three months before she died.”

Isabelle straightened, and held the branches against her chest. “I’m sorry.”

Still swinging the blade, he barely glanced at her. “It was long ago.”

“Denis told me about her.”

He stopped and turned to look at her, his expression fierce but his eyes … his eyes looked like those of a wounded animal. “What did he tell you?”

“Enough.”

She laid the last of the branches down on the ground beneath the shelter for her bed, then went to him. She had made the foray; she would carry on, even if that meant revealing a pain so secret and so deep that even Allis didn’t know it. Since she would never be seeing him again, she would have him know that she understood more of his suffering than he could guess.

He sheathed his sword as she drew near.

“Alexander,” she began, nervous but resolute, “I know what it is like to feel as if your existence is not important to a parent. My father was so distraught after my mother died, it was as if he walled himself in a cave of grief and could not—or would not—come out. As if I was not important enough for him to consider at all. Allis did her best to make up for that, but she had many concerns, and my brother to look after, too.”

Alexander’s expression altered, to one of such tormented guilt that his eyes seemed to burn with it. “But you did not take out your pain on someone innocent, as I have done. You did not, in callous selfishness, think only of your own misery and do what you thought would ease it, without regard for anyone else.”

He bowed his head before her, like a criminal brought before one of the king’s judges. “My lady, I am ashamed of what I’ve done, of the hell I’ve put you through. I know now that I alone am responsible for all that I have done. I am to blame for my fate—not Sir Connor, or my father. I could have chosen better, and more wisely. I could have sought employ as a soldier and been content. I could, perhaps, have made something more of myself than that, but instead I chose with selfish, bitter anger, and with no regard for who else might get hurt.” He raised his anguished eyes to look at her. “I am sorry, Isabelle. More sorry than I can say, and I will never forgive myself for what I have done to you.”

Hearing the sincerity and agony in his voice, she remembered him as he had been at the first—bitter and brooding and full of hate for those he believed had wronged him. She thought of him as he’d protected her, and rescued her from that horrible cell. She recalled his tender care, and the kisses they had shared, even those she had not believed she wanted.