A Knight to Remember (13 page)

It was nothing less than possession, and he recognized it. He freed his mouth, and with a shout, he gave himself to her. She felt his muscles strain and stretch through her skin. She saw his lips curl back from his teeth and the agony of pleasure that stamped every feature. As he finished, she heard him intone her name. “Edlyn. Edlyn.”

They collapsed in an exhausted heap. This union, and all they had said, bore contemplation, but Edlyn didn’t have the energy or the inclination. All she wanted to do was draft.

When he moved off her, she complained with a soft whimper.

“I’ll crush you,” he whispered and pulled the furs over her. They couldn’t take his place, and she waited for him to come back and warm her. He didn’t, and she opened her eyes just a slit to see him dressing.

Too bad, because she liked him better naked.

He saw her peeking, and as he adjusted his belt, he knelt beside the mat. “See? You are an enchantress.” Burrowing under the covers, he kissed her breast, her navel, her chin. “You may have your two possessions before I burn the rest of that…matter.”

He didn’t think much of the effects she’d accumulated at the abbey, she could tell, but she didn’t blame him.

His voice softened, and he coaxed, “Is there any other service I might perform for you?”

Give up your fighting
. “Not unless you can bring my sons back from their pilgrimage,” she muttered.

“They’ll be back soon, won’t they?” Hugh asked. “No matter, we’ll wait for them.”

Surprisingly, it never occurred to her Hugh
wouldn’t
wait. “I know, but…I want them now.” She wailed like a child, and she waited for him to laugh at her.

Instead, he tucked the blankets around her shoulders. “Just sleep. I’ll take care of everything.” And in a whisper, he said, “And I will win our battle, my lady. That you must never doubt.”

Her sense of repose slipped away. “Not until the day you cherish peace as much as you cherish the clash of arms.”

“Battle in a good cause is a noble thing,” he insisted.

“There is more than one way to win a battle, my lord. Watch.” She smiled. “And I will demonstrate.”

“Ah.” Edlyn dug through the sack of her belongings and pulled forth those two most precious mementos. She rubbed her face on the ragged pieces of cloth and breathed in their essence. Then, carefully, she folded them and placed them in a corner.

She had to have something with which to cover her bare body also. Something more than the surcoat she’d found tossed across a stool. Hugh had made her promise not to removed anything else from the sack, but Hugh didn’t want her wandering naked, either
Having made that sensible deduction, she dressed herself in the old brown cotte she’d worn every day in the dispensary.

Now she was clad and ready for…what? Midday had passed, so she broke her fast with the bread and ale waiting on the table. Then she stood, indecisive. Should she leave? Should she stay? If she left, would Hugh’s men grin at her while she crossed the camp and tease her about her late rising? Worse, would they frown at her and think Robin’s widow unworthy to wed their commander?

And what would she say when she reached the abbey? She’d stretched the formerly beautiful wedding dress over a trunk and picked at a stain on the hem. Worse, what would the nuns say? How was Edlyn going to explain the grass stains on the white hose and splotches of mud on the painted leather shoes? The nuns had loaned he those clothes cheerfully, in a charitable spirit, and she would be returning them in tatters. The nuns would lecture her. They might even shun her, and rightly so. The weaving of cloth, the sewing of clothing, occupied every spare moment of every woman’s day, and she had ruined some of the fairest examples of the craft in her midnight rambles around the forest.

Hugh might have satisfied his need for revenge during the night, but she couldn’t pay the nuns for the damage she’d done in the same coin, and she had no other. Just as before, she was poverty-stricken.

“M’lady?”

Wharton’s rough voice outside the tent flap made her jump. She’d vanquished her fear of him, so she’d thought, but apparently the memory of his early threats lived on, and mayhap, just mayhap, her kidnapping of the day before had recalled those memories.

“M’lady?” He sounded a little impatient now. “I’ve brought ye something t’ wear.”

Shaking her trepidation, she walked briskly to the flap and pulled it back. Behind Wharton, the camp appeared to be empty.

He looked at her garments in disgust. “I thought ye promised t’ keep only two things out o’ that bag.”

“I have to dress!”

“If ye can call it that.” A wool sack, one that looked much like the first, sat at his feet, and he thrust it at her. “Here. From th’ master, with his compliments.” He sounded quite gallant, but then he spoiled it by adding, “Ye’d best shuck that ugly cotte an’ throw me out that sack afore th’ master gets back, or he’ll do as I told him an’ keep ye naked an’ with child.”

“You said that?”

“It’ll be th’ only way t’ keep a woman such as ye out o’ trouble, from what I can see.” He turned away, muttering, “Not even one hour married an’ ye got yerself stolen.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” she called after him.

He shrugged.

“I got myself out of it!”

He made a sound with his mouth that would have been more appropriate coming from his arse.

“How childish,” she said. She used her best mommy voice, but Wharton only jeered.

A head peeked out from behind one of the other tents, and she realized some of the squires remained. But where had the knights gone?

No matter. That obscure embarrassment still lingered, and she ducked inside. At the table, she dumped out the sack’s contents. She gasped. Jewel colors glowed in the dim light. Somehow, Wharton had gotten his hands on clothes. Lovely clothes. Cottes of thin
wool. Slim tubes of hose. Shifts, all of them as fine as the one she’d stained the night before. And shoes. Shoes of all sizes.

She backed away from them as if they were a slithering snake. “Wharton,” she whispered. Then louder, “Wharton!” She ran outside, looking for Hugh’s manservant.

She found him squatting by the fire, darning a hole in a man’s rough black hose. Stalking up to him, she grabbed him by the front of his surcoat. “How did you get those clothes?”

“M’ lady, why do you ask?” He smirked at her. He had been waiting for her. He knew just what she suspected.

“Did you steal those clothes from my
nuns
?”

He placed his hand on his chest in a gesture of innocence. “Steal from nuns? What a dreadful thought.”

She leaned over until her face was level with his. “How did you get those clothes?”

He rose, keeping his eyes glued tight to hers. “My master gave me a purse full o’ coins an’ told me t’ buy you a wardrobe.”

“Oh.” What else could she say? “Oh. Well…did the nuns
want
to sell their clothes?”

“Lady Corliss encouraged them t’ open their trunks, an’ th’ gold convinced them.”

She stumbled back. “Oh.”

“Thanks would be appreciated.”

“Of a certainty,” she mumbled. “My thanks.”

“Not me.” He looked disgusted. “My master.”

Glad to break eye contact, she glanced around. “Where is he?”

“Dress t’ please him. That’s th’ thanks he wants.”

That seemed reasonable. “But where is he?”

“He’ll be back.”

She wasn’t getting anything our of this discussion, and besides, she could almost hear those clothes calling her. Trudging back to he tent, she tried not to look too eager. After all, she
had
worn fine clothes before. She’d been the wife if a duke and an earl. But oh, how she had missed the silks, the thin wools, he bright colors! It was odd how new clothes gave her such pleasure. She would have to consult Lady Corliss about her excessive vanity.

When she emerged from the tent, she wore the green striped gown the nuns had refused to let her wear on her wedding day. She liked it, symbol of easy virtue or not. Her hair was tucked into a net crispinette at the nape of her neck. She’d owned several before her eviction from Robin’s castle, and she missed the convenience of confining her hair. Now she had three crispinettes as well as various headgear of all shapes and sizes.

Wharton and the shy youth who had peeked at her sat on camp stools set in the sunlight, and it seemed Wharton was instructing the young man in the art of hose repair.

Edlyn approved. She liked a man who could care for himself.

They didn’t seem to see her, but without looking up, Wharton demanded, “Where are ye going? ”

She stumbled slightly on the too-long her. “I’m going to the dispensary.”

“Why?”

She dumped the bag of old possessions at his feet, then showed him the bag he’ brought her new clothes in. “I have to gather some herbs for my travels and provide guidance to whoever is taking my…” In disgust, she exclaimed, “Oh, why am I explaining myself to you?”

“Because th’ master told me t’ keep an eye on ye an’ keep ye out o’ trouble. That’s why I couldn’t ride with th’ men.” Wharton’s voice rose. “I’m playin’ nursemaid t’ th’ master’ wife.”

“Oh.” Clearly, he’d wanted to ride with the men. She looked at the youth. “Are you here to watch me, too?”

The youth scrambled to his feet. “Nay, my lady. I’m here to guard the tents against thieves.”

He was taller and thinner than she’d realized, and she smiled in a gust of amusement. Just so her sons would appear in a few years. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Wynkyn of Covney.”

“You’re a long way from home,” she observed.

His face twisted in that pained expression young men used for a smile. “Nay, my lady, this is my home.”

A pang struck her, and she looked at the tents. “Mine, too, I suppose.”

Sensing criticism, Wynkyn rushed into speech. “The men are kind, my lady, and the lord has the finest of everything.”

Wharton lifted the black tube he held. “An’ I’ll show ye how t’ darn hose if ye’re nice t’ me, m’ lady.”

“My thanks, Wharton, but I already know how to do that.” Wharton made to hand her the hose, and she jumped back. “I trust in your skill completely.”

Rapidly she turned toward the abbey, and Wharton called, “’Tis yer husband’s.”

“And you know how he likes them,” she called back, grinning at the rude word he used in reply.

She approached the dispensary tentatively, already feeling alienated from this place where she had been poor, chaste, and struggling for resignation. all the windows were open and the door gaped wide, and she
could hear someone muttering. She tapped on the sill, and the muttering stopped.

“Aye?” the strong, impatient voice identified the speaker at once.

Edlyn stepped over the threshold. She smelled the black, disgusting odor of wet charcoal and saw the boxes and herbs that cluttered the tables. “Lady Neville, what are you doing?”

The widowed countess pulled her head out of the oven and glared. “I’m trying to start a fire; what does it look like I’m trying to start a fire; what does it look like I’m doing?”

“Did it burn out?” Edlyn went and peered in the little door. “Why don’t you have your servant start it?”

“Because when it burned out, you used to start it, so I thought, ‘How hard can it be?’”

Lady Neville’s obvious exasperation made Edlyn burst into laughter. “It took me months to learn to do it, and believe me, if I’d a servant, I would have given the job to her. The main thing I learned was never to let it go out.” Peering inside at the firebox, she scraped out the ashes, then crumpled a handful of punk. “Decayed wood works best as tinder,” she explained. “Decayed wood works best as tinder,” she explained. “I can never get it started with aught else.” Taking the steel from Lady Neville’s limp hands, she struck it against the flint until it sparked, sparked again, and finally caught the tinder. Carefully she blew on the flame, then fed it slivers of wood until it burned enthusiastically.

Lady Neville snatched the firesteel and the flint from beside Edlyn and put them on the table. “I can do the rest,” she snapped.

“I know you can,” Edlyn said soothingly.

They looked at each other, and Lady Neville gave in and laughed. “I’m supposed to take care of
the dispensary now that you’re going. Why do you suppose my lady abbess decided that?”

“Probably for the same reason she decided I should be in the dispensary. I have no patience with men like Baron Sadynton with their spurious ills and their petty complaints, and I tell them so.”

“That could be it,” Lady Neville acknowledged. “After your wedding yesterday, he ran into a fist.”

Appalled and surprised, Edlyn asked, “You hit him?”

“Not I.” Lady Neville smiled. “’Twas your husband who did that honor. I merely loudly expressed the opinion he should lie in the dirt of the square and bleed from the nose until his head ran dry.”

In admiration, Edlyn stared at the tall aristocrat who looked like a cat presented with a fat mouse. “I have always liked you.”

Sarcastic, abrasive, Lady Neville didn’t make friends easily, and she stiffened at this confidence. Then, sensing Edlyn’s sincerity, she relaxed. “And I, you. But after my comment, my lady abbess asked that I visit her in her office, and she gave me this task.”

With mock sincerity, Edlyn said, “The patients will be relieved, I’am sure.”

Lady Neville bit her lip to subdue a smirk. “You have the right of it, I’m of an age to say what I like, and no sop of a baron is going to stop me.” She fed a few more twigs onto the growing fire, then straightened. “I know you didn’t want to marry that man, but ’twas the best thing for you and your children.”

Edlyn blinked. did every man and woman think they had the right to express their opinions of her affairs?

“I’ve offended you, I suppose, but without patients
to abuse, I must make do with you.” Lady Neville ignored Edlyn’s startled laugh. “When you’re gone from this place, remember me occasionally and give your husband an extra roll in the blankets in my name.”

“You didn’t have to take vows when your husband died, you know,” Edlyn observed.

“I didn’t have children, I had no dower, and I had no desire to live with my pitying relatives as a nursemaid for their brats. Lady Corliss took me in without a dowry, and I’m grateful. I will become a good nun if it takes me the rest of my days.” Lady Neville sighed as she looked at the mess of boxes and herbs tossed about the room. “Which it will.”