David watched Alisoun leave and didn’t know whether to worry or shout for joy. Over and over again, he would think she had grown used to him. Then she would skitter away like a wild bird, and he realized he was no closer to understanding her than before. She was a constant enigma, but lately he’d begun to suspect that God and all the saints were on his side, and he’d win this battle as he had any other—with a combination of skill, intelligence, and luck.
Standing, he leaned over the bucket and washed until Eudo told him he’d eliminated the worst of his grime. Then, taking the wet rag, he followed Alisoun’s trail. He followed her easily. Everyone he encountered indicated where she’d gone. Only after he left the castle walls did he have to use his tracking skills, searching for the bent grasses into the woods, then seeking the leaves and branches that showed the signs of her passing. He caught sight of her as she broke into the woodland meadow, and he watched from the shadows as she spread her arms wide to the sunshine. Then she whirled in circles like some Crusader’s heathen bride. He crept closer, fascinated by the open elation she displayed, and when she dropped to the ground, he waited in suspense to see what else she would do.
She did nothing, only covering her eyes with both hands as if worry had overcome her or she’d been drained by the burst of emotion.
She was behaving uncharacteristically, he thought, as he walked to her side. But that was to be expected of a woman in her condition.
She didn’t move. It seemed to him she was thinking too hard to notice anything outside of herself, but when he moved to block the sun from her face she came off the ground with her fist up.
“Whoa!” He waved the white rag above his head in mock surrender. “Don’t hurt me, my lady. I’m a peaceful man.”
She let out her breath in a half-laugh and dropped her fist. “Of course you are.” She sounded as if she didn’t believe it, and she sank back to the ground. “It’s those who aren’t so peaceful who concern me.” Plucking the grass, she asked, “Why did you follow me?”
The truth would not do, at least not yet, so he offered the rag. “I need my face washed.”
She looked at the rag, then at his face. “Do you?”
“According to you, my lady, I always need my face washed. Here.” He shoved the rag into her hand. “Take it.”
She held it gingerly as if she didn’t want to touch it, or him, then spread it over her hand and sat up on her heels. He stretched out on the ground and wiggled around until his head rested in her lap, then squinted up at her. “I like this.”
“You would.”
She stroked the rag over the oozing scrapes and David flinched. “Hey! Be gentle!”
“Being gentle won’t get the dirt out of these scrapes.” With unusual enthusiasm, she scrubbed at the sore place on his forehead. “Hugh showed quite a bit of innovation with his use of the ground as a weapon.”
“Everything he knows he learned from me,” David mumbled as she pressed the rag against his split lip.
“You’ve worked miracles,” she said.
“Enough miracles to justify another month’s wages?”
The rag, and her hand beneath it, smacked against his already sore nose, and when he yelped, she apologized in her careful, measured tones. If he hadn’t been in pain, he would have laughed—who would have thought, two months ago, that the correct Lady Alisoun would descend to such a petty revenge?
But she said, “You’ll be paid on the day of the accounting, no sooner.”
“I’m glad.” Sitting up, he took the rag away from her and flung it away. “I want to keep protecting you from whatever makes you bring up your fist when you think you’re alone.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “Don’t you want to tell me about it yet?” he coaxed.
She shook her head.
Disappointment made his voice sharp. “Isn’t it my duty to see that you are safe at all times? I think that a walk such as you’ve just taken could scarcely be considered prudent.”
“Even foolish.” She glanced around the open meadow. “Still, he hides himself. I almost wish he would return so we could end this.”
Her intensity surprised David. He’d chided her, true, but he’d almost forgotten why he beat his body into submission day after day. The reward he received every night pushed danger far from his thoughts. Now he, too, glanced around the meadow. They sat in the open, exposed to any predator’s gaze, and a frisson of warning went up his spine. “Mayhap we should sit in the shade of a tree.”
“Mayhap we should go back.”
They should, of course, but he wanted to talk to her, and when they returned to the castle she’d be inundated with duties and he’d need to go make his peace with Sir Walter. “A few more minutes alone,” he begged. “I have a question to ask you.”
Warily, she agreed. He helped her up and then put his arm around her waist. He liked the easy intimacy of that, the knowledge that he could have her out here and she would yield. It had been a significant victory for him that one morning on the table, and he’d often wondered why his burst of fury and impatience had worked when all his careful preparation the previous night had failed. He’d been too angry and disappointed to think about it at first, and that night he’d shouldered his way into her bedroom and let his emotions drive them. Later, he’d experimented, trying to see what evoked her passion, and he’d discovered she sought, recognized, and responded only to genuine ardor.
If he tried to seduce her, she resisted him with all her fiber. She sought his genuine affection, and she was an expert at detecting the sincerity of others’ feelings. What excited her most were the times he concentrated on the two of them to the exclusion of all else. Luckily for him, that proved easy, for when he allowed desire to sweep through him, her response rewarded him beyond his wildest dreams. She acted like a woman in love, and he liked her that way.
Choosing a place in the shade where she could rest her back against a tree, he swept her a bow and said, “Sit here.”
Solemnly, she obeyed him, arranging her skirts carefully and tucking her feet beneath her. She sat with her spine straight and her face composed. Without a word spoken, he understood. She was the lady; he was the mercenary. She would speak to him, but she took care that he saw no glimpse of skin or any part which might excite him, for today she wanted to forget their intimacies of the night before.
Too bad he couldn’t allow her such privacy.
“Why did you run away back there?”
She hesitated, and he could see her wanting to pretend she didn’t remember how abruptly she had left. But unlike most people he’d ever met, she faced trouble when it came.
“Everything we’ve done previously, we’ve done in the privacy of our chambers, and although everyone knew what was occurring, they hadn’t actually seen.”
“Except for the sheet,” he reminded her.
“Aye. Except for that.” Her nostrils flared with disapproval, just as they always did when he reminded her of the sheet. “But when I wished to do something as simple as tending your hurt, my people watched as if it were an event, an indication of…something.”
“Like affection?”
He’d struck a nerve somehow, for she sat up on her heels and her hands twisted in her lap. “I have affection for you! I couldn’t have let you come to my bed if I did not. Just because I don’t show every passing emotion, it doesn’t mean I’m cold or unfeeling. It simply means I’ve learned that women are better obeyed when they restrain their emotions.”
Startled by her vehemence, he agreed.
She went on. “From the moment of my birth, my parents explained to me the difficulties I would face as an heiress with no close male kin. My godparents helped me realize my position and how others would try to take advantage of it. All of them trained me in appropriate behavior, and tempered me by maintaining a proper distance. Just because I keep to myself, it does not mean I have no feelings.”
“I know that.” He kept his voice low, half-afraid she would flee again when she realized what she’d revealed. “I’ve always known there’s more to you than meets the eye.”
She collapsed back onto the ground. “Aye. Like wealth.”
Her cold suggestion left him shocked and indignant until he remembered why he’d courted her in the first place. He did want her money, her land, her influence. He needed it, all of it, but that wasn’t the only reason he courted her now, and he wanted to tell her in the eloquent language of the troubadours. Instead he gulped and said, “There’s more than that.”
“More. Aye, more. More time, mostly.”
“Time?”
“Time between my birth and now. I’m old.”
He laughed. He shouldn’t have, but compared to him, she was a child, an innocent babe inexperienced with anguish or struggle.
Then he glanced at her and saw the way her lips tightened and the glare she bent on him. Hastily, he said, “I beg your pardon, my lady. Your experience in diplomacy and management is far beyond the reach of mine, yet your beauty has never been touched by frost.” His flattery failed to mollify her, and he sighed. “My lady—Alisoun—have you thought that lately, in the last fortnight, you have occasionally lost your serenity on more than one occasion?”
Incredulous, she said, “That’s your fault! You’ll take nothing less than my complete participation.”
“Aye, in bed.” He took her hand and petted it. “Have I told you how happy you make me in bed?”
She stiffened yet further. “You’ve mentioned it, although I scarcely believe we should have such a discussion outside in the sunlight.”
Leaning forward, he whispered, “Do I make you happy in bed?” She glanced around as if expecting the stern monitors of her behavior to materialize and chide her, and he raised his voice to recapture her attention. “Do I make you happy in—”
“Aye.” She clamped her teeth together hard, as if that one-word admission pained her.
He kissed her hand, then put it back in her lap. His hands lingered, rubbing her thighs through the material of her skirt. The friction warmed her even as she batted ineffectually at him, and she relaxed a little. He said, “I’ve observed that you occasionally laugh out loud.”
“Not frequently.”
“Not frequently,” he agreed. “But it’s startling. Pleasant, but startling.”
“I won’t do it anymore.”
“Don’t stop. It’s made everyone quite cheerful. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Maybe.” She begrudged him even so small an acknowledgment.
“I’ve seen you blinking tears from your eyes, too.”
She pushed back so quickly her head hit the tree trunk, but she didn’t seem to notice the pain. He heard panic when she demanded, “When?”
“The musicians made you cry last night with their ballad about the brothers who were rival pirates and sank each other’s ships.”
“I have no sympathy for pirates.”
“That’s why it surprised me when you wept.”
Tears filled her eyes now—not that she would admit it—and he ached for her. She was experiencing a full range of emotions for the first time, and she was as susceptible to the pangs as any adolescent. But he couldn’t coddle her. Not now. It was far too late for that. She had to face this sensibly, like the lady Alisoun, and slowly she would grow into this other, newer role. “I’ve also noted that you observe Hazel when she’s close to you.”
“Hazel?”
“The baby. Hazel. You offer to hold her, too.” She didn’t say anything, and he probed. “Is there any reason why she interests you now?”
“Babies are just interesting.”
“Aye, I always thought so.” Since the first time he’d held his daughter in his arms. “Your emotions are easily touched, babies fascinate you…Do you have something you want to tell me?”
“Why?” She was beginning to sound defensive.
This was proving every bit as difficult as he had feared. “Because you haven’t had your monthly flux in the time we’ve been together.”
She just stared at him as if he were speaking some foreign language.
“I just thought that since you’re laughing and crying easily, and I’ve noticed when I touch you here—” he caressed one breast slowly, trying to calm her, “—you’re sensitive, and you haven’t had—”
“Are you trying to suggest I am with child?”
She understood! He almost wiped his brow in relief. “That had occurred to me. Do you think that you might be?”
“How should I know? I’ve never been concerned with such trivial matters.” She must have realized how odd that sounded, for she explained, “As lady, my task has never been to deal with the early signs of conception. My task has been to assist in delivering the babes into the world while the man responsible drinks himself into oblivion.”
“I wondered if that might not be the case,” he answered mildly.
Ignoring him, she swept on. “And how do you know so much about a woman’s body, anyway?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “Oh, I suppose you have a hundred bastards loitering around your estate. Well, if you know so much about it, why didn’t you just say, ‘My lady, you’re with child,’ and be done with it?”
She resented admitting her ignorance. He understood that. She was more than a little frightened, and he understood that, too. That explained why she lashed out at him, and he maintained his composure. “I don’t know for sure that you carry a babe, and to the best of my knowledge, I have no bastards on my estate. But with our nightly activities and the symptoms you’re displaying, it seems likely you’ll bear me a child before the first planting.”
“Some women don’t bear children for years after they begin mating.”
He grinned, he couldn’t help it. “A lusty planting in a fallow field, my lady.”
“It’s not funny!”
“I smile for joy, not because I’m amused. Making a child is a moment to celebrate.”
“For you. Your job is done. Mine’s just begun.”
He began to lose patience, although he’d had dealings with pregnant women before and well knew their uneasy temperaments. “It’s true that in these next few months you will indeed bear the burden, but a father’s duties do not end with conception.”
“Yours do.”
Her cruelty struck at him like a well-aimed blow. He took a quick breath and let it out slowly. “I know you had originally thought to raise my babe alone, but surely you’ve seen the error of your plan.”
“What error? There is no error.”
“Do you deny the pleasure we find in each other’s company? Not just in the bed, but in the evening when we speak together?”
“Do you think I should take a husband based on the pleasure of his conversation? I’ve lived alone for a long time, and no one treats me like an equal except you. No one dares argue with me because I’m the lady and have a sharp tongue. Now a crude mercenary sits at my table and tells me what he thinks of me, my management, and of our world without constantly bowing to my superior status.”
Her tongue lashed him, and he fought his resentment. “I didn’t realize I offended you.”
“You don’t offend me.” She rose to her feet slowly, walking her hands up the tree trunk behind her. “I enjoy it. It’s a powerful enchantment, this companionship, and you’ve used it to destroy the efficient functioning of my mind.”
She’d as good as labeled him a wizard. Incredulously, he said, “It’s called honesty, my lady, and if you’ve been so seldom exposed to it you call it enchantment, I pity you.”
“Pity me? You envy me. You want to marry me. You want to use this child to control my…my twelve sacks of wool. To control my life!”
“Your money? Your life?” She confused him. She infuriated him. Didn’t she know what was important? “This is a babe we’re talking about. I do want to marry you, and I know you said—”
“I said I wouldn’t, and I never change my mind.”
Her eyes were gray as flint, and just as hard and cold, and he lost control of his temper. After all, he’d failed in the greatest gamble of his life. “You said you wouldn’t, but when I covered you at night, I thought I’d found a woman, the true woman that you were. I was mistaken. You used me just as I use Louis to cover a mare, and now my duties are accomplished.”
“You don’t have to wait for accounting day.” She scrambled for her keys and shook the one which opened her strongbox at him. “I’ll give you the gold at once.”
“Double the gold.” He could hurt her, too. “Gold for being your mercenary, and gold for being your stud.”
“I’ll send Eudo with it and you can be gone.”
“Send Eudo with half of it. Keep the other half for my son, and tell him it is his patrimony, to be used anytime he wishes, to travel to Radcliffe and be with me, his father.” Tapping his finger on his chest, he said, “You might be able to keep my child from me, but you can’t take that. I am his father and always will be.”
“Be gone with you, then.”
“I wouldn’t stay if you begged me.”
They stood facing each other, panting, as if they’d run a race and exhausted all their energy. Alisoun’s wimple sat cocked on her head, her cheeks flamed, and she smelled of brimstone. He didn’t look much better, he supposed, and he knew one brief moment of chagrin, one moment of wanting her last glimpse of him to be Sir David of Radcliffe, the legendary mercenary.
Instead, anger and hurt had stripped him of all pretense. She tossed her head and strode away, putting as much distance between them as quickly as she could. He whirled and stormed in the opposite direction.
He’d gone only a short distance before conscience brought him to a halt.
He couldn’t leave her to navigate the woods alone. His month of stewardship hadn’t ended yet. Quietly, so she wouldn’t notice and draw false conclusions, he followed her through the woods, where he halted in the shadow of the trees. From there he watched her walk across the clearing and into the stream of people moving from the village to the castle.
She never looked back.
And he didn’t care. With a curse, he punched both fists into a tree trunk, then grabbed his scraped and aching knuckles and swore ever louder. Damn the woman! She had him doing stupid things for stupid reasons. He stomped back into the woods, sucking his bleeding wounds. He hadn’t meant to lose his temper, but by Saint Michael’s arms, he’d not return and beg her pardon when she’d been the one who insisted on following her asinine plans. He circled through the trees. Aye, she’d warned him, but he’d thought she’d see the good sense of marrying him. He’d thought she was an intelligent woman. He should have realized those two terms were mutually exclusive. When a man—
“God…”
David stopped and cocked his head. That sounded like an animal in pain.
“Saint…John help…”
An animal who groaned. An animal with a vocabulary. His senses suddenly went on the alert. He scanned the area, noting broken branches on the underbrush and a dribble of some dark substance marking the leaves. He leaned closer.
Blood. His earlier itch returned, the sense of being watched, and he glanced around at the green enclave. He could see no one, but that broken voice called again.
“Help…please.”
Determined, wary, he followed the dark speckled trail. The sound of labored breathing grew louder. Then he saw him. Sir Walter. A bloody wound where his mouth should be. Eyes swollen shut. Leg bones cocked at an ungainly angle.
“By Goddes corpus!” David leaped over the barrier of bushes and knelt at the battered man’s side. “What happened?”
Sir Walter lisped, “David?”
“Aye, it’s me.” David grimly ran his hands over Sir Walter, seeking more injuries and finding them. “I need to get help.”
“Nay!” Sir Walter clawed at David’s arm. “Help.”
David glanced around.
“Help,” Sir Walter insisted.
David understood. If he left Sir Walter, what would be left when he returned with assistance? Carefully he reached around the stocky man and hoisted him onto his shoulders. Sir Walter didn’t make a sound, making David respect him for his fortitude. Standing up slowly, David adjusted Sir Walter’s weight to ease his suffering.
Then Sir Walter moaned in a burst of pain. Or David thought it was pain until he caught the name.
“Alisoun.”
And David grasped the fact that someone had attacked Sir Walter and beat him brutally. If that someone would do that to a seasoned warrior, what could he do to a woman alone?
“Alisoun,” he whispered. Where was Alisoun? She’d been headed into the castle when last he’d seen her, but had she continued on her way? He started jogging.
Sir Walter gasped for breath as if he were dying, but when David slowed, he urged, “Go…on.”
They broke free of the forest and into the cleared area around the castle. Villeins from George’s Cross and strangers visiting the market walked the road from the village to the castle. They gaped at the mercenary and his gory burden, swerving aside to avoid him, but David paid them no heed. Heading straight across the drawbridge, he bellowed, “Lady Alisoun. Where’s Lady Alisoun?”
No one answered at first. The servants stood transfixed as he hurried on into the inner bailey and toward the keep. “Did she come back? Where’s Lady Alisoun?”
Two women stood on the landing of the steps, and he shouted, “You stupid cows! Where’s your mistress?”
“I’m here.” Alisoun spoke from the door of the dairy, and David swerved that direction. She looked as cool as the first time he’d met her, and her gaze was as cold as a winter’s breeze. In a voice that should have frozen the marrow in his bones, she began, “How dare you return after…?” Then her eyes widened, and she gasped in horror. “God his soul bless, ’tis Sir Walter.” Without pause, she ran for the keep, calling, “Get out my medical supplies! Warm water and blankets. Prepare the solar, we’ll put him there.” She returned to David and reached out a gentle hand to Sir Walter. She touched his head lightly and spoke to him with a caress in her very tone. “Good Sir Walter, who did this to you?”
Sir Walter didn’t answer. Only David felt the sigh of relief that shuddered through the grizzled warrior and turned his body from an anguished sack to an comatose burden.
When Sir Walter didn’t answer, Alisoun took her hand away and smeared the blood between her fingers. “Carry him upstairs,” she told David. “Let me work on him before he regains consciousness.”
His burden dragged at him as he climbed the stairs to the keep. The women had disappeared, and the corridor inside seemed miraculously clear of obstacles. A few moments ago he’d thought never to see this great hall again, now he barely glanced around as he headed for the solar. Someone held the door open, and hands assisted him as he lowered the unconscious man onto the mattress. Then Alisoun pushed him back, and he moved to the far corner of the bed where he could be out of the way, yet watch the proceedings.
He didn’t enjoy them, especially not when Alisoun set first the bone in one leg, then the bone in the other. Menservants had to hold the now-conscious Sir Walter, and the screams drove mighty Hugh from the chamber to empty his gut outside. Alisoun’s face was the color of parchment, but she tugged, cleaned and splinted before she stepped away from the bed.
If David had any doubts about Alisoun’s strength, her courage in the face of blood and pain reassured him. Life in all its vicissitudes would never defeat this woman.
As she stepped off the dais, she staggered and he sprang forward, ready to assist her.
Something hit him from behind, knocking him aside. He spun around, fists up, and found himself face to face with Lady Edlyn.
“Don’t touch her!” the girl shouted. “Everyone knows what you did.”
Everyone knew of their quarrel in the woods? He glanced at Alisoun, but she looked as amazed as he felt. “What did I do?”
“You did this to Sir Walter.” Lady Edlyn skittered back as if he were an animal about to attack. “You quarreled with him, followed him into the woods and you—”
“Wait!” Lady Alisoun stepped into the fray. “Sir David didn’t hurt Sir Walter. To say so is absurd.”
Philippa stood in the doorway, clutching her baby. “He’s a dangerous, angry man.”
“He spent his time with me,” Alisoun said.
“The whole time you were gone?” Philippa asked.
“Nay, but—”
“Who else has the skills to beat Sir Walter?”
In the moment of silence that followed, David glanced around the room. Alisoun’s servants stood in a sullen circle watching him. Some simply looked confused, but some held knives and pokers in their hands.
Alisoun saw them and declared, “This is ridiculous.”
“I’ve done nothing,” David said.
Dismissing his objection with a gesture, Philippa said, “He quarreled with Sir Walter, and when you returned to the castle, you made it clear he quarreled with you. You’re not safe, Alisoun, and you know what men are like.”
David swallowed his instinctive protest. He would never forget this scene. Like the climax of a passion play, it stood alone as the apex of an eventful day. In his mind, this moment remained fixed, highlighted by powerful emotions. Somehow, somewhere in this morass of fear and accusation rested the kernel of fact which would explain his presence here and the danger which threatened his lady.
Alisoun stood still, letting the heated emotions swirl around her while soothing her people with her very tranquillity. “I have every faith in Sir David. He was angry, true, but he has an impeccable reputation, and he has always treated me with honor.”
Lady Edlyn gestured toward him. “Look at him, my lady! His hands are scabbed and bleeding. How else could he have done such a thing except by beating Sir Walter?”
Holding up his hands, David flexed them in chagrin. Everyone saw, and the servants stepped forward with a growl.
“David!” Stepping close to him, Alisoun gathered his hands in hers. “You didn’t do this in the practice yard.”
Fearing the prick of a knife against his neck, David trailed behind her as she tugged him closer to the light. “It’s nothing.”
In a voice clogged with fear, Lady Edlyn said, “Lady Alisoun, please move away from him.”
“They need to be bandaged,” Alisoun said.
“They’re fine.” He tried to wrench them free. Again the servants stepped closer, their weapons raised, and he hastily ceased resistance. He was going to have to tell her what he’d done, admit his stupidity, and he slumped in embarrassment. “I hit a tree.”
Her hands tightened on his. “What?”
“I hit a tree.”
Everyone heard that time. Alisoun stared at him as if he’d run mad. “You mean you…walked into a tree with your fists?”
Philippa said, “My lady, surely you don’t believe that.”
“Why would you hit a tree?” Alisoun asked.
“To avoid striking you or Sir Walter or one of the serving maids or kicking a dog or any of the other lovely ways a man picks to display his anger.” He swept an accusing glance around at the men, and one or two coughed and shuffled backward. “I didn’t beat Sir Walter.”
Then Alisoun did it. The thing he’d dreamed of all his life.
“I know that.” She laid one hand on his chest and looked up into his eyes, her own calm, sure and trusting. “I was never in doubt.”
And Sir David Radcliffe fell in love.