As he faced the pair of footpads, Rowan cursed his uncharacteristic lapse in concentration. He’d assumed that caution was an ingrained, unquenchable facet of his nature. What had made him lower his guard just when he needed it most?
It must be that woman. Cecily Tyrell. His intended bride. He had never laid eyes on the creature and already she was causing him trouble.
He’d been so preoccupied with misgivings about his impending forced union that the bandits had him at knifepoint before he realized what was happening. The large one with the weapon looked none too swift of thought or reflex. If he’d been alone, Rowan would have taken the fellow on without a qualm. But the little fox who taunted him and tossed his purse Rowan recognized for a wilier and far more dangerous character.
Though he shrank from the prospect of turning up penniless for his own wedding, Rowan was content to surrender the paltry sum in his money pouch. What troubled him was the possibility of the bandits guessing his true station and holding him for ransom.
Stalling for time in which to plan his escape, he noticed a stripling boy slip from the cover of the woods. If the other pair had stolen upon him as soundlessly, Rowan would not have reproached himself for being taken unawares. A flicker of admiration for the boy’s skill stirred within him. He assumed the lad must be a confederate of the other bandits, until the young fellow raised a finger to lips shadowed by his deep cowl.
“I swear to you, good men…” Rowan pitched his voice louder to cover any sound of the boy’s approach. “My master wouldn’t spare a crooked farthing to ransom my life. He’d pay more to get back that spavined old nag I ride. To speak plain, I’d sooner throw my lot in with you than go back to his service, anyhow.”
With a flick of his thumb, the boy indicated the burly, knife-wielding bandit. In what he hoped was a subtle countersign, Rowan nodded toward the smaller man. If he read the pair correctly, the big fellow would take a moment to react when the boy clubbed his partner. In that moment, Rowan was confident he could disarm the thief. Besides, he doubted a clout on the head would have much effect upon such a great ox.
Bobbing his unspoken agreement, the lad stepped forward, raising his stout stick.
A twig snapped under footfall.
Both the bandits turned at the sound.
Without the instant’s hesitation that might have cost Rowan and him their lives, the boy smashed his hunk of wood down on the smaller bandit’s pate. The blow landed with greater force than Rowan expected from so slight a youth. Before the slow-witted thief had a chance to react, Rowan plucked the knife from his hammy fist and raised it to the man’s throat.
He flashed the boy a grin of gratitude.
Before they had a chance to savor their victory, a cry rose in the distance. “How now? What’s going on there?”
The boy spun around. “God’s teeth! It’s Fulke’s men.”
Fulke? It was a common enough name among the Normans. Still it struck Rowan like a sword-thrust to the belly.
In one fluid stroke, the boy raised his club again and hammered the big bandit. Rowan barely had time to twitch the knife aside before the man fell senseless to earth.
“Come on!” Clutching Rowan’s wrist, the boy hauled him into the woods.
Behind them came the muted thud of horses’ hooves pummeling the soft ground. It took every scrap of concentration for Rowan to keep from pitching face first into the underbrush as the boy pulled him farther into the forest.
Suddenly they were up to Rowan’s waist in water and wading deeper by the second. Still the lad did not let him go, and for reasons he could not explain, Rowan had no wish to break free. Did he sense that the youngster knew this area and would lead him out of harm better than he could manage himself? Or was he simply curious to make the acquaintance of this stripling who had appeared, as if by magic, to rescue him?
“Over here,” whispered the boy, towing Rowan toward a sheet of trailing foliage that hung from the jutting riverbank above.
They slipped behind it, into a brief, secret space. Rowan started as a fish wriggled past his ankle.
No sooner had they gained their refuge than pursuers burst noisily from the trees on the opposite bank. Through the dense curtain of greenery, Rowan could just make out a trio of armed men. They did not look to be confederates of the bandits, yet some warrior’s intuition advised him to stay out of their sight. Realizing the boy had let go of his wrist at last, Rowan reached around to draw the lad back and cover his mouth.
The men-at-arms beat the bushes across the stream, loudly inquiring of each other where their quarry could have gone. Beneath his fingers, Rowan felt the lad’s lips curve into a wide grin. At the same moment, he became aware that his other hand rested not on a boy’s bony chest, but upon the softly rounded breast of a young woman.
“By Our Lady!” The words broke from Rowan before he could check them.
Fortunately, the searchers were making such a din they took no notice. Realizing he still cupped her breast, Rowan wrenched his hand away. The young woman turned toward him, pulling back her cowl. Even in the emerald dimness of their hideaway, he knew her in an instant.
The novice from that tiny priory in the Cotswolds. The one who’d given him vegetables and behaved less like a nun than any woman he’d ever met. The one who had hovered on the edge of his thoughts ever since, no matter how he had tried to banish her.
Once again, her eyes held him in their mischievous, challenging gaze. Trapped, Rowan had no choice but to drink her in. Those features—delicate, yet lively. That hair, like threads of chestnut silk shot with filaments of gold. The lips that parted in a smile of such radiance it lit her whole face from deep within.
Though he tried to buffer himself against it, his heart lurched within his chest. A hundred long-suppressed emotions kindled to life with the searing pain of frostbitten extremities thawed too quickly. Rowan could scarcely restrain himself from breaking out of the thicket and throwing himself on the mercy of their pursuers. What could they subject him to more hazardous than the sweet peril of proximity to this bewitching creature?
“It’s no good,” panted one of the searchers just then. “We’ll never find them in this thick brush without the hounds.”
With general grunts of agreement, they lumbered back toward the clearing.
The girl let out a long, quivering breath. “I hope the thieves have come to their senses and made away with the horses.”
Rowan tried in vain to keep a sober face. Before he could voice any of the questions that warred in his thoughts, the girl slipped out of their hiding place and waded farther downstream.
“I shouldn’t wait for them to come back if I were you,” she called over her shoulder. “If they do catch you up, please don’t tell them which way I’m headed.”
Defenses he’d labored years to erect momentarily prevented him from following her. An overwhelming curiosity made him scale the barricade.
“Please wait!”
She spun around, continuing to wade backward. “I can’t. Those men will return with their hounds. I have to get as far away from them as I can.”
“Let me come with you then.”
She hesitated, and for an instant Rowan could see his own doubt, suspicion and intrigue mirrored in her face. Her searching gaze weighed him in the balance. He shrank from the prospect that she might find him wanting.
“Very…well,” she said at last, with audible reluctance. “You might be of some use. Only, try not to slow me down.”
Slow her down? Rowan almost snorted with contempt at the notion. Never had a woman challenged him so. Yet he sensed it was no idle boast. This strange, compelling creature might well put a man to the test.
Rowan stirred from his musings only to realize that his companion had turned away and widened the gap between them. By the time he closed it, he was panting so hard he could scarcely gasp out the first of many questions that piqued him.
“Since…we’re…going to be…traveling together…don’t you think you should…tell me your name?”
As they scrambled onto the riverbank and set off through more woods, the girl cast him a sidelong glance in which he read amusement mingled with exasperation. “I’ve come to your aid twice now, sir. The forest garth at Wenwith Priory, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Forget her? Rowan could scarcely imagine it.
“If one of us owes the other an introduction,” she continued, “I believe it is you.”
Though his pride bristled at her suggestion, he had to admit the justice of it. “Very well.” He drew a long breath. Could he trust such a creature with the truth of his identity? One minute posing as a nun, the next a thief. Pursued by figures of some authority—to what end?
“My name is…John.”
Perhaps she recognized his hesitation for a lie. “John of Shrewsbury?” Jesting skepticism textured her words.
For reasons not fully clear to him, Rowan felt he owed her something nearer the truth. “John FitzCourtenay of Ravensridge.”
The girl stopped so abruptly, Rowan was several steps past before he realized it.
“Then…you are kin to Lord…Rowan DeCourtenay?”
The sound of his name on her tongue sent a shiver through Rowan. He dismissed the idea as nonsense. Surely it was no more than the cool dampness of his clothes.
“Aye. His bastard half brother.” The outrageous claim almost made Rowan laugh aloud. The bones of his haughty, pious father must be twirling in their tomb! “Do you know him?”
The girl grinned ruefully and set off walking again. “I shall soon know him very well. My name is Cecily Tyrell. By Empress Maud’s command, I am Lord DeCourtenay’s intended bride.”
Rowan walked smack into a tree.
The impact stunned him less than Cecily Tyrell’s revelation.
“Have a care!” she scolded. “If you injure yourself, I shall have no choice but to leave you behind.”
“It’s nothing. I’m…I’m fine.” And so he was. Apart from the wild dance his heart jigged in his chest. Apart from the pulse singing in his ears like a chorus of a thousand bees.
Apart from the all-but-forgotten sensations that stirred in his loins. “You took me by surprise, Lady Cecily.”
Inwardly, Rowan chided himself for not guessing earlier. They’d scarcely met, yet already Cecily Tyrell wreaked havoc with his wits!
“So you know about me! Did his lordship send you to Brantham to fetch me?”
“Yes.” Rowan grasped the suggestion like a lifeline. “I…he spoke with Empress Maud at the Devizes. I was sent to bring you to Ravensridge for the wedding.”
Cecily Tyrell swiftly crossed herself. “Our Lady must be looking out for me. This is the best of good fortune that we should meet.”
Strangely, Rowan found his own spirit resonating to her words. For all she turned his world on end, meeting up with her at this time and in this place did feel like good fortune. “I thought…that is, I wondered if…you might have run away to avoid marrying…my brother.”
“I might have, if it would have done the least good.”
Her disarming candor made Rowan choke with laughter.
“Please don’t tell him I said that. Men are such proud creatures. The fact is, I’m in terrible trouble and I need your brother’s help. If I have to wed him to get it—” she shrugged “—then I will, that’s all.”
The thick, moss-covered trunk of a fallen oak blocked their path. Rowan clasped Cecily’s hand as she scrambled over. Even as he released it again, a faint prickling sensation traveled up his arm. Rowan frowned. His body was behaving in the queerest fashion of late. Once they reached Ravensridge, he would purge himself with a good physic.
Until then, he tried to distract himself by satisfying his curiosity. “This trouble you’re in—does it involve those men who gave us chase?”
Without breaking stride, or wasting breath to reply, she nodded. Then, perhaps deciding she owed him a fuller explanation, she said, “One of my old suitors came calling when he found out I’d fallen heir to Brantham. Instead of posies and courting gifts, he brought an army to secure my hand. The men who chased us are his. No doubt he’s discovered me gone by now. He’ll soon have his people scouring the country for me.”
“How did you manage to get away?”
She stopped then, and Rowan stopped as well, to catch his breath. By her look of intense concentration, he could tell Cecily was listening for sounds of pursuit. She appeared heartened by what she did not hear. When she set off again at a somewhat slower pace, Rowan fell in step with her.
“I made it a condition of Brantham’s surrender that Fulke allow a band of refugee lepers to depart unmolested. I donned the robes of a dead leper and went out with them.”
Rowan shook his head in disbelief. Though he could not help but admire her audacity, there could be no question of his marrying such a woman. He’d partially reconciled himself to the notion of a meek, biddable wife. Those two words were the last he would ever use to describe this unbridled hoyden.
He would take her to Ravensridge, then do everything in his power to help her recover her keep. But marriage? That was clearly out of the question, Empress or no Empress.
Something compelled him to ask, “This suitor of yours—were you fond of him before the war? Do you spurn him now simply because he is Stephen’s man?”
“I liked him very little before.” The aversion in her tone grew harder and colder with each word she spoke. “After the outrage he committed today, there is not a soul in Christendom I detest above Fulke DeBoissard.”
Rowan collided with another tree. This time it rocked him so violently that he fell to the ground, ears ringing.
They rang with Cecily Tyrell’s last words to him. There is not a soul in Christendom I detest above Fulke DeBoissard.
On that point, Rowan decided as he staggered to his feet, they were in complete agreement.
Cecily shook her head. “You must watch where you’re going. Can you go on? We’re almost to the hills. I know some caves where we can hide until nightfall.”
“Lead on, lady. I promise to watch my step from now on.”
When Cecily glanced back, she could see John FitzCourtenay weaving on his feet. She tried to stifle an exasperated sigh. Men could be such a hindrance at times. At least this one wasn’t swaggering and pressing his masculine authority to take the lead. Something about his dogged persistence laid claim to her sympathy.
Dropping back several paces, she took his arm. “Lean on me until you get your balance back.”
When he opened his mouth to protest, she countered, “It will only slow us further if you take another fall. Let us put off our talk until we gain a good hiding place.”
From between clenched teeth he muttered, “Agreed.”
They labored on in silence for some time, saving their breath to scramble up the rising ground. Though Cecily suspected her companion had regained his balance, he made no move to release himself from her grasp.
Thanks be, they would soon reach the caves. Their flight had put an unaccustomed strain on her. Her heart raced far more quickly than usual. Her breath came fast and shallow. A most unwholesome flush stung her cheeks.
One question she burned to pose John FitzCourtenay—were he and his brother very much alike?
When the Empress had proposed she wed the recently returned Crusader, Cecily had imagined a much older man. Nearly fifty years had passed since the Great Crusade. The few veterans of that celebrated conflict were now graybeards, mumbling their porridge and whiling away winter evenings spinning tales of the Outremer for their grandchildren. If she must take a husband, such a one might be borne, though even Cecily’s stout heart shrank from the thought of sharing his marriage bed.
Repicturing Rowan DeCourtenay in the likeness of his half brother, Cecily contemplated her wedding night anew. Such musings provoked very different sensations. Different, but still unwelcome.
While she did not want to fear or despise her husband, she could not afford to entertain tender or, worse yet, desirous feelings for him. A respectful, expedient alliance was what she needed. Cecily had an intuition that such a union would not be easy to maintain with a virile, vigorous husband.
Despite her warning to FitzCourtenay about keeping his eyes on the trail, Cecily found her own gaze straying sidelong with infuriating frequency. What was it about his strong, jutting profile that drew her so? Surely he had accompanied his brother to the Holy Land. The relentless eastern sun had bronzed his face and etched strangely attractive creases around his deep-set eyes. His wide, firm mouth, aquiline nose and dark, emphatic eyebrows signaled his shifting thoughts and moods with subtle power. What was he thinking and feeling at this moment? Was he as aware of her touch as she was of his?
Lost in such novel thoughts, Cecily missed her footing on the steep, uneven ground. As she flailed out, trying to avoid a disastrous fall, John FitzCourtenay caught her arm and pulled her close to steady her. The all-too-pleasant shock of finding herself suddenly in his arms made Cecily’s head spin and her knees weaken. She knew she should pull away, but some rebellious impulse urged her to linger. For the first time within memory, she was experiencing the protective warmth of a man’s embrace.
It intoxicated her.
There was no other way to explain the sensation. It was as though she had rapidly quaffed a goblet of potent wine.
His chest rumbled with a deep, infectious chuckle. “Perhaps now you won’t be sorry you suffered me to come along.”
Something warned her against looking up into his face, but Cecily Tyrell had scarcely heeded a warning in her life—even those of her own reason.
She looked.
His eyes, a piercing silvery-blue, held hers and made her wish she could magically exchange the borrowed leper’s rags for her finest linen gown.
Cecily parted her lips to snap that she wouldn’t have fallen but for the distraction he posed. At the last instant she realized it might not be prudent to admit how much he distracted her.
“If you recall, I predicted you might have your uses.” Despite her best effort at coolness, her words came out like a flirtatious quip.
He laughed at this, though Cecily sensed the mirth came almost against his will.
As the last mellow note of laughter died away, Cecily picked up another sound—faint and distant, but infinitely menacing.
The baying of hounds.