Awaken My Fire (11 page)

His clothes were an austere expression of his status. The coat of arms of the House of Suffolk—two crossed swords over a torch lit with flames—stood out in blue-and-gold velvet stitched against the thick dark green gambeson, fastened by a metal-studded, thick black belt. Brass-metal breastplates were sewn into the chest, and thick black leather lined the shoulders and perfectly matched suede breeches. He wore no other armor, not even chain mail. His height and the width of his shoulders spoke of a well-exercised and uncommon strength, while his ease and presence spoke of barely restrained power.

"Your name?" he asked in a deep whisper that hinted at an uncanny suspicion. "I would know your Christian name."

The hairs lifted slowly on the back of her neck. Her name was absolutely the last thing he'd ever hear spoken from her lips. Footsteps sounded and she hurriedly pulled the long doublet over her head, pulling it down before letting the blanket fall. Leggings followed. She reached to her boots.

In four strides, the great red giant appeared at the door, bending so as not to hit his head. Between the two knights, the room shrank. Flaming red hair brushed his broad shoulders, and firelight danced in his sharp brown eyes. Every maid's worst nightmare, like his master, the tall, red-haired lion looked made of muscle and ready to fight, clad in a dark brown, ermine-lined doublet, suede breeches and tall black boots. A long sword hung from his thick black belt. Before she understood what it meant, the unusual compassion on the man's face struck her like a blow, at first because the plain emotion seemed ill-suited for his face and appearance, then because she realized the emotion was meant for her.

"The man. He be badly wounded."

“
No!” The word came as a plea as she jumped up and ran two paces before the room of wooded colors and firelight and shadows swirled into a melting gray that stole her breath. She stumbled, tried to catch herself. Those strong arms swept under her, she heard a curse before, with sheer force of will, she attempted to pull herself up from the darkness that threatened. "Please ... I can walk, I—"

"Apparently not without fainting. I will take you to his side."

He carried her out into the night air. His knights had lit the area with torches. Peasants gathered on the side, solemn and still shaken, though no longer frightened, due to the aid and assurances of the knights. Potiers lay on a litter. The sight gave her strength, and with a desperate twist of her legs, she touched the ground and ran to his side. "Potiers! Potiers! Mon Dieu." She stared upon his ripped and bloodied jerkin. Blood oozed from a huge, jagged chest wound. Another wound bled at his thigh. Either wound alone was enough to lay a far younger man to the ground. Still, no one on earth could manage to call up more hope than the girl at his side. "I need torchlight here," she said as she hurriedly pulled off his boot. "Shears and boiling water and cloth for bandages. Use the ripped dress in the cottage. Hurry. S'il vousplait—hurry."

The men exchanged confused glances, certain the wounded man needed only a priest. Vincent motioned with his head, that was all, and two men rushed to do her bidding. She pulled off his other boot. With an effort, she ripped open a legging, then the other side. These she wrapped quickly around her hands, which she then pressed to Potiers' chest to stop the bleeding. With a grimace, he woke up, took one look and managed to smile. "Blessed saints, ye are well!"

With all her strength she forced away her tears and graced him with a smile. "Aye! And little thanks to you! I had to be rescued by the English!"

"Ye gawds, a fate worse than death. I shall never hear the end of it."

"And why, just look at yourself," she scolded, desperate to keep him to her as she felt the precious lifeblood soak over her hands. "Not just one wound, but two. Two of them. You will probably be wanting a month of free days for your recovery, and what am I supposed to do without you, I wonder—"

A woman rushed up with a pair of shears just as a man returned with the dress, torn into strips. "The water is heating as I speak."

She quickly discarded the soaked bandages and wrapped her hands in the other two, returning them at once to the wound. She felt the dull throb of his wound, slowing. His face blurred; she caught her lip as someone knelt beside her. A gentle hand came to her eyes, wiping the tears so that she might see, Vincent moved beyond words by the depth of the young girl's love for her servant.

Potiers stared up at her. "Milady, milady," he said in a whisper. "There is something I must tell you now..."

Tears washed her eyes and she leaned closer so that no one might overhear. "Papillion wanted me to tell you when the time came, when you at last found peace, but I cannot wait—"

"Tell me what?"

"Your mother, Roshelle. Papillion loved your mother. You are his daughter..."

Shocked disbelief changed her eyes, but just for a moment. For as her mind greeted the revelation, it was only to see it was not really a revelation at all. As if she had always known it, and she supposed she had. For to look into Papillion's eyes was to see her own, and Papillion had always been her father in heart. And she knew the Count of Lyons and Bourges could not have been her father, except in name...

"You ... you are not surprised?"

She shook her head.

"Milady"—he forced a smile—"keep Joan safe from the rain."

"Aye. Always..."

"I love you, milady ... I have always loved you. May God keep you forever safe..."

"Potiers." She placed her trembling lips over his, but the slow beat of his pulse stopped. He went very still. She shook her head. "No, no, Potiers." But it was too late. The bandages came off and she grabbed his still warm hand, burying her face against it. Vincent let her stay that way as long as he could before he reached down to pull her away, motioning to his men to cover the servant's body. "No." She tried to escape, but with a sage's wisdom, Vincent held her firm until she collapsed with the acceptance.

A dark cloud settled over her dazed and weary mind, and she was hardly aware of what happened next as her mind repeated the denial over and over again. She vaguely understood the man's orders to one of his knights to return to camp and have the army prepare for the march to Reales at morning light, that they would join them when they reached that spot. All this was said as he took her back inside the cottage. Just outside the door, she heard the Frenchman's gushing words of inexpressible gratitude for something, some compensation given him, yet this, too, was but a haze in her mind. Holding her in his arms on the small pallet, the man wrapped his strong arms around her while her slender frame shook softly with tears.

Gradually the denial began to fade, like the distant echo of a nightmare to terrible to be real. Consciousness became a haze as her senses filled with their surroundings: a clean masculine scent of hard-worked leather and sea-washed skin. She heard the quiet crackle of the fire in the hearth against the swift, steady beat of his heart as she succumbed to the utterly intoxicating warmth of his arms. An unknowing finger traced a feather-light line over the prominent muscle of his forearm, unaware of the effect of this. No man had ever held her such. Yet she did not wonder at this strange comfort. Too tired and dazed to think, she yielded to the compelling warmth and security got by the press of his body against hers until...

Long dark lashes fluttered over the mesmerizing blue eyes.

Vincent released his first easy breath, his entire body rigid and hot with previously unknown desire, his body maddeningly unconcerned with the horror and tragedy the young lady had just survived.

Not since he was thirteen!

He stared for a long moment at her still and sleeping form bathed in firelight. That she was beautiful was an understatement, but beauty alone rarely dictated the race of his blood. Not to this extent. Nay, there was something else here, the heroic proportions of her struggle and fight, a certain vulnerability and innocence, all of which sat alongside her love for her servant. "I love you ... I have always loved you." He understood how she had inspired such devotion.

The girl was a rare and beautiful creature indeed.

Soft breaths came from her slightly parted lips and he gently traced a line across the edge of the scarf that hid her hair. He wanted to see that hair—

"A little warm for ye in here, Vincent?"

He looked over to see Wilhelm bending in the doorway. "Warm? Nay, more like drawn alongside a raging fire. Her beauty is like a delicate—"

"Delicate? You should have a look at the wound her dagger put in one of them, this girl who looks as fragile as a porcelain vase but who rides a half-wild stallion bareback across a war-torn countryside in the dark middle of the night dressed as a boy. Delicate? Methinks not."

Vincent conceded the point with a grin. "I need to know her name," he began as he stepped outside with Wilhelm, but stopped when he discovered the sea of peasants' faces gathered in this night outside the small house. The men held shovels.

The Duke of Suffolk commanded a frightening presence. He stood to his full height, hands on hips. The light of the cottage fire shone behind him, outlining his impressive form. His intelligent eyes searched the background where his men had already collected the necessary logs and twigs for the funeral-pyre in anticipation of his wishes.

"Milord." Gilles, the older man, stepped nervously forward. A hand went to his bandaged head as he looked behind him for support before turning back to the Duke of Suffolk. "They be godless beasts in this life for sure, but their souls belong to God for the judgment. 'Tis a sin and heresy not to bury them proper."

Standing off to the side, the knights of Suffolk smiled, familiar as they were with Vincent's iconoclastic views of the church, the one in question being that the church's insistence on burial had nothing to do with God and everything to do with the church's burial fee. "Huh." He scowled, irritated but kind enough to answer the peasants' concern within the limits of their own understanding. "Think you God needs a boxed body to make a judgment? More to the point, think these wretches are deserving of your hard labor and sweat, old man? And do we have any doubt of where their pitiful souls are headed?" He shook his head. "Disease is known to fester on rotting flesh, and God knows this wretched land has seen enough disease. Nay—my will be done. I say they burn into ashes. The wind and air can bury their sorry souls."

The peasants exchanged confused glances. A woman took Gilles's sleeve in hand and, too timid to pose the question to the duke, she forced Gilles to do it. For they both knew who the lady was and therefore what her servant deserved. "Milord, the lady's servant. Surely he is deserving of a Christian burial?"

A surprised brow lifted. "Lady? I knew she belonged in the clerical class, but a lady?" Actually, he had been thinking some lord's by-blow, but— "Know you her name?"

The surprise question and the frightened silence brought the men of Suffolk to abrupt attention, the group of peasants receiving their interested gazes. The sudden tension among the peasant folk filled with fear, and a great fear it was as anxious eyes searched their neighbors' faces. "Nay." An older woman found her courage, a courage shadowed by a faint tremble in her voice. "Twas but a slight, milord. We do not know the girl or her name."

Their fear increased tenfold each second Vincent's steely gaze held them to his will. So, the girl, whoever she was, was known around the countryside and able to solicit the uncommon courage and protection of the peasantry. Only one person he knew of could do that.

Something dark and dangerous came into his eyes as he answered his own question. "So 'tis a knight of Reales whom you ask me to bury, and for a lady who belongs in the court of Countess Roshelle of Reales. Perhaps even one of the countess's women?"

Not quite, but predictably, no one thought to correct his error. Intrigues made many things better left unsaid. Roshelle's name and title were two of them.

*****

Chapter 3

Against the sound of obscene laughter, vicious hands came to her person, grabbing, squeezing, pushing. "No!" Roshelle bolted up, a hand came to her mouth to stop her scream and terrified eyes opened to see—

"Gilles! Oh, God." Her stomach somersaulted twice, then once again. She grabbed her chest as the whole terrible world came back at her in a rush. "Oh, dear God, 'tis you—"

A weathered finger on his lips, he glanced at the door. "Milady, he hath discovered, not yet your name, but that you be from the court of Reales. He be planning to use you as a hostage, he is! He be thinkin' the sight of you will open the castle gates to his army. Aye, it would work only too well! You must escape!"

She took this in as she searched his face. "Where is he now?"

"Down by the road. In the company of his knights. He has sent orders for the army to march. Hurry! Twill be now or never."