Authors: Jennifer Blake
“Not to me. I suppose it shall be whatever you will.”
Marguerite was not so certain. This new David appeared to have ideas of his own, also a great liking for seeing them carried out strictly to his order. “I can’t go back to Braesford as Henry will surely look for me there, and the same is true if I should take refuge with my sister Cate and her husband at their holdings. David might keep me with him when he returns whence he came yet to remain with him and his men-at-arms will soon have me named as a camp follower. What else is there?”
“You have the favor of Henry’s queen. Will she not intercede for you?”
“Well she might, but what odds Henry will listen to her.”
Astrid lifted her tiny hands in a fatalistic gesture. “Hi ho, we shall be camp followers then.”
“We?”
“Wherever you go, there must I go also.”
Marguerite gave her an astringent look. “Don’t become Biblical, please. I’m not sure I can bear it.” She went on after a moment. “In any case, I think David too aware of my station to allow such a pass.”
“Your station.”
“As Lady Marguerite, daughter of a lord. He has always been far more conscious of the difference in rank between us than I.”
“He didn’t seem particularly humble on the journey.”
“Did he not?”
The serving woman lifted miniscule brows. “Have you taken note of the man, milady? I mean, really looked at him? He is no youth, but a hardened soldier. He has fought in dozens of campaigns and gained recognition and honors far beyond most. What need has he to feel beneath any man, or any woman?”
“None whatever,” Marguerite said, heat rising in her face. Of course she had taken note of this changed David. How could she not when he was so fair to look upon. She had sensed the power he held in such rigorous control, too, and felt his hands upon her in a manner he would never have dared before. Yet he had knelt before her, seemed reluctant to sit at the same table with her
whom he had served at meals while her brother-in-law’s squire. “The difference seems to be there, all the same.”
“You refine too much upon it.”
Marguerite gazed at the opposite wall for long moments before dislodging the conundrum with a swift shake of her head. “I should still like to know what he intends.”
“You will have to ask him. He said nothing to me.”
It was to be expected. As far as Marguerite had been able to tell while living with Braesford, men enjoyed keeping their plans secret. She had never been sure if the cause was lack of trust in female discretion or only that they preferred to make decisions in midstream, as it were, and without tedious explanation. “He can’t remain in England,” she said with a worried frown.
“Can he not?”
“He could be accused of all manner of crimes. I never meant for him to risk so much, never dreamed he might abduct me on the road.”
“What did you think he would do? Come for you in the dead of night?”
“Something of the sort,” she said, looking away. “I could have gone to meet him if he had sent word.”
“And then what?”
Marguerite preferred not to say. The only sure prevention for an unwanted marriage was to take another groom in place of the one assigned her. “I don’t know. That he might come was such a forlorn hope, I hardly thought beyond it.”
Astrid continued to eat, unperturbed. “I feel sure Sir David will know what to do.”
“He must ride for the coast, I think, and take ship as soon as it may be arranged.”
“With or without you?”
Now there was a question, one that left her oddly breathless. She would be safe if she went with him. Or safe from marriage to Lord Halliwell, at least.
From the turmoil inside her arose a shaft of anger. “How can you be so calm?” she demanded of Astrid. “Only think what it will be like if Henry sends a company of men after us that is twice or thrice the size of David’s.”
“First he has to find us. Fear not, milady. Sir David will see you are not wed against your will, even if he has to do the deed himself.”
“It’s all very well for you to say so, but you were not there when he said he had no thought of taking a wife.”
“He said that?”
Marguerite’s nod was brief. He had been speaking as the Golden Knight at the time, still she believed him.
Not that she wished to be wed to any man if it could be avoided. She much preferred being a maiden, even if it did make her dependent upon her sisters and their husbands. There was nothing greatly wrong with going back and forth between their two houses, playing the loving aunt to her nieces and nephews, helping out when they were ill or when one of her sisters gave birth again. Yet watching Isabel and Cate with the men they had married, she often knew an aching need for similar closeness, for something more of loving affection than had been hers thus far.
David did not return.
Marguerite sat staring into the flames for an hour
or more after Astrid had curled up, fully dressed, in the middle of the thin straw pallet that lay against one wall and fallen into her usual deathlike slumber. She had thought to question his plans, to discover if he had a better idea than she of where they must go and what was to be done. Finally, the peat on the hearth smoldered down to flame-edge chunks of ash. She sighed and wrapped herself in her cloak, then lay down beside Astrid and pulled a woven wool coverlet over them both.
Sleep would not come. She lay staring at the dark shadows that wavered on the ceiling in what was left of the fire glow. She could not rid herself of the fear that David might yet hang for his bold daylight abduction. Far better if he had come and taken her away by night. She would have met him at the postern gate at Braesford if he had only sent to tell her when. She would have gone with him without question. There was no man she trusted more.
No boy she had once trusted more, at any rate.
What had she done with her fervent request for aid? She could not bear it if he was forced to pay with his life for answering it; the mere chance was a knife twisting in her heart. Why had she not thought the matter through to its end? She had been desperate to avoid becoming Lady Halliwell, yes, but she would never have sent Astrid to find David if she had known it would come to this.
How strange it was to see him, however, and to discover the man he had become. His face and large form stunned the mind now with their masculine perfection. He was so self-contained, so rigid in his dedication to honor and valor. Somewhere deep inside, she was a little
frightened of him, though she would die before admitting it. What hardship and labor, danger and horror he must have endured to turn him into such a fearsome knight. Thinking of it was more than she could bear.
Regardless, he had paid homage to her just as he had so many years ago, before he marched away to fight for Henry at the battle of Stoke-on-Trent. His vow given that day seemed as meaningful to him now as it had then, as valued as his vows of knighthood. The Golden Knight was, just possibly, as strong and brave, as true and pure of heart as the ballads claimed. Mayhap the troubadours who told of such things had not lied. She liked to think they had not, at any rate.
The David of years ago had been a handsome lad, strong and stalwart, courteous yet with a vein of endearing humor. How proud he had been to be Sir Rand’s squire after her brother-in-law saved him from a beating by street thugs. This was after he had run away from the tannery where he’d been apprenticed by the nuns who had reared him from an orphan babe. Truth to tell, Marguerite mourned the gentle, painfully self-effacing boy who had wanted nothing from life except to serve Sir Rand and be her friend and guardian.
Why had he gone away after the carnage and heroism of Stoke? She had never known.
Oh, but how they had laughed before war came upon the land, running with the wind, eating food stolen from the kitchen while lying beside a cool, clear stream, talking, talking as they sat in the grass making crowns of spring clover. He had kissed her hand once, his mouth soft, smooth and warm against her skin. Another time, she had leaned over him as he slept with his head in her
lap, and, greatly daring, touched her lips to his forehead. Such sweet memories, they almost made her cry. She had kept them close, so close they were almost like a dream….
She woke of a sudden to the quiet creak of the door hinge. Lying rigid under the coverlet, she watched the shadow that stepped inside, stretching, moving over the wall beside her. The shape, the height and width of shoulder could be none except David. She sighed in soundless relief and closed her eyes for a moment of thankfulness.
He came closer, stepping with a tread so silent she would not have known if she had not wakened. He stopped beside the narrow pallet. Long moments slipped past as he stood staring down upon her where she lay. Goose bumps prickled over her under her clothing. Her heartbeat quickened, pounding in her chest until she thought surely he could hear it. Her eyelids fluttered a little before she could still them. She wondered what he saw that he did not turn away at once.
Clothing rustled, a whisper of sound, as he knelt beside her. She thought in scattered irrelevance that he must have removed his armor for the night. She waited, wondering what he was about, wondering if he meant to slide in beside her, wondering in shivering anticipation if he would take more liberties of the kind he’d ventured while she rode with him.
He put out a hand, almost touching her face, for she could feel its warmth hovering above her cheek. Yet he did not touch, did nothing except reach to pull the edge of the coverlet higher over her shoulder. A whisper, too soft to understand, shifted in the air above her head.
Then he withdrew, his movements amazingly soundless for so large a man. Cool air swirled inside as he pulled open the door. It closed behind him with the softest of thuds.
In time, the fire died away into darkness. Only then did Marguerite sleep again.
“You are in danger if you stay. You must go!”
“In good time,” David said in calm reply to that urgent command from Lady Marguerite. He might have known dawn would bring more argument. She was accustomed to thinking herself able to command him, at least in small things. It had been his privilege and pleasure to obey in the past, but that was long ago and in much smaller matters. “First, I must see you to safety.”
They walked the track that stretched past the cottage, he and the lady, away from prying eyes and ears. Morning mist hung like white bed curtains in the treetops, shot through with the silver, slanting rays of the rising sun. Birds called in melodious trills above the droning voices and occasional laughter of his men. The air was fresh and sweet, layered with the fragrance of some blooming vine along with the smells of smoke and horses and bread toasting on sticks held above campfires. It was a good day to be alive.
“I was wrong to send for you,” she said, twining her fingers together at her waist. “I should have realized how it would be. Now you must return whence you came. If you ride hard, you and your men can be at the coast well before Lord Halliwell or…or Henry comes up with you.”
Her concern for his safety touched a place inside him
that had grown so callused from blow after blow upon it that he’d thought it beyond feeling. He watched her with raw concentration while regulating his breathing to an even cadence that might control the stirring of his body. Reaching out, he removed a piece of bed straw that had become entangled in the veil covering her hair, then allowed his fingers to trail along her jawline to her chin before closing them in a fist that he lowered to his side.
“Am I to leave you here, unguarded?” he asked in quiet reason. “That would be foolish after taking you from the safeguard of your escort.”
“You cannot sleep outside my door for the rest of your life!”
Heat bloomed across the back of his neck. “I did not intend to offend. It seemed a way to make certain none entered and that…”
“And that all knew you had not lain with me during the night, yes, I know,” she said with asperity. “I am grateful for the thought, as was Astrid when she stumbled over you as she started out for water this morning, but it only adds to the problem with this abduction. To remain in your company is as much a threat to my future as the marriage arranged for me.”
“To remain here without protection would be a threat indeed,” he said in hard disagreement. “I can’t go, can’t leave you unguarded.”
“If you will be so kind as to send a messenger to Braesford, Sir Rand will come for me. Astrid and I may stay inside, out of sight, until he arrives.”
“You would return to Braesford’s keep, knowing Henry will only find you there again?” He would not
mention the mind-searing possibilities involved in two females left alone, at the mercy of any stray game-keeper, forest outlaw or band of mercenary soldiers from either of the armies gathering in the land. The mere idea turned him cold and sick inside.
“If you would speak of foolishness, then my hope of avoiding the marriage arranged for me was surely that.” A corner of her mouth curled for an instant. “It is woman’s part to accept these things in all modesty.”
“I cannot accept it,” he answered with tempered steel in his voice. “Not now.”
“What would you have me do instead? You have no idea of marrying me.”
“No. That I can’t do.”
She swung toward him, a frown in the rich brown depths of her eyes. “Why is that? Have you a wife in France?”
“Nay, no wife. As to the why of it, you know well.”
Color like the bloom on a peach spread across her cheekbones. “This sacred vow, sworn upon the cross, to serve me in chaste and knightly fashion, without desire, without stint, without regard for life?”
“Sworn upon the hilt of my sword, rather, though it’s the same thing.”
“It was long ago. We were children.”
“Not entirely.” His smile was brief and a little twisted.
She clenched her fingers upon each other until they appeared as pale as candle wax. “There is of course the curse of the Graces, but I thought, I know you once said…”
“Oh, aye, I am beyond its effects, for I cared for you
from the moment I saw you, will always care for you,” he answered, the words a renewal of a different vow made long ago. To say them satisfied something inside him, in spite of everything.