Awaken My Fire (33 page)

His gaze followed hers across the distance to the castle gate, where Bryce stood with his hand in the maid Joan's. Bryce was smiling from the show; Joan was smiling because Bryce was smiling. Bryce leaned over to kiss the maid's cheek. Roshelle's eyes widened with disbelief.

Vincent quickly disbanded the crowd of men with a nod of his head and rushed to Roshelle's side. She didn't notice. Squawking chickens scattered from her path as she marched toward Joan and Bryce. Noticing something terribly amiss, guessing what it was, Cisely, too, rushed to Roshelle's side.

"Roshelle, please . . . Let me explain—"

There could be no explanation that would soften the anger pounding with fear in her heart. Roshelle shook her head, not trusting herself to speak to Cisely. Cisely, who obviously had kept this from her when she knew. She knew what it meant.

Roshelle came to the couple at last, not even glancing at Joan. Instead, her blue eyes were an indictment of Bryce; she stared as if he were the lowest, most vile creature she had ever seen, and he was. He was. At last she turned to Joan. "Joan," she said with soft urgency, "get you to my chambers."

Joan did not at first hear, so transfixed was she upon Bryce's eyes. Then as the words finally penetrated her mind, she simply shook her head. "I will stay."

Roshelle acted instantly. She grabbed Joan's shoulders, but the poor lovesick girl peered around Roshelle's worried gaze to smile back at Bryce. Roshelle clapped her hands in Joan's face. The sudden noise jerked Joan backward, and she came abruptly to attention. "Get you to my chambers, Joan! Now! And wait for me there."

Roshelle had never used that tone of voice with Joan before. Never. Roshelle's anger shocked Joan, then confused her. Cisely, too, appeared stunned. Then Joan's gaze dropped uncertainly to her feet and she nodded quickly, obediently, before rushing away. She stopped several paces beyond, turned and rushed back. She lifted a flower chain from her neck and placed it over Roshelle's before kissing her cheek. Then she waved a fare-thee-well to Bryce and disappeared into the courtyard.

The men watched Joan until she was gone, their smiles disappearing as they turned back to see the fury shining in the blue eyes fixed now on Bryce. Dear Lord, Vincent thought, staring, she was beautiful, even with the fury brightening her cheeks and changing those eyes. She wore a violet gossamer panel over a white short-sleeved chemise, all loose, unbelted and flowing, trimmed with a magnificent design of embroidered bright purple birds and wildflowers. She wore no surcoat and no caul, unless one counted the rather elaborate crown of her half-lifted hair. Yet from the fury in her eyes, Vincent guessed the problem.

Like a mother cat, she was.

He watched the small pale hand clutch the cross around her neck, and why this bothered him, he'd never know. As if she used it for her heavenly appeals, the madness of her magical thinking, he supposed. She gave him the briefest glance. Few maids, highborn or otherwise, could remain unintimidated by the sheer size and force of the masculine presence surrounding her, but not so Roshelle.

For her blue eyes had found Bryce again.

Bryce met her stare evenly, undaunted as only a knight could be, though mystified. He asked slowly, exercising his own caution, "Do ye have words for me about the lass, milady?"

"Indeed I do. And these words be simple and to the point: if you ever touch Joan again, so help me God, 'twill be the last thing you ever do."

"Temperance, milady." Bryce's gaze narrowed a fraction as he, too, warned. "Tis no idle thing to threaten a knight of the Suffolk guard."

"Not one word from me should you consider idle, sir!"

"Huh! Then what be your complaint? State your objections plain, for I cannot fathom a one."

"Aye," Vincent said, "I, too, would be interested to hear your objections to my good man's courtship of the maid."

Her blue eyes widened incredulously. "Be you deaf, dumb, blind? For that be the only excuse for failing to grasp that the girl is simple!"

Yet that was hardly the main reason.

"Oh, that!" Bryce exclaimed with a pretense of surprise. "Well, if that be all, rest assured, milady, I do not fault Joan that."

"Grand of ye, Bryce." Wilhelm nodded as if his generosity were a fine and noble thing indeed.

"You do not fault her—" Roshelle stopped, aghast that he would make fun of this. Slowly, with mounting ire, she said, "Joan has no mental reasoning—"

"Roshelle, sweetling," Vincent interjected, thinking to point out a fact. "I know of few men interested in a woman's reasoning facilities."

"Seeing as they have so little," Wilhelm added, pointing a finger at his head, as if Roshelle herself might need a visual clue to grasp the subject. He winked conspiratorially at Cisely and received a fetching giggle, one she quickly stifled. "A good thing all around."

"That does it! I will not condescend to listen to you make jests of Joan, or my sex, or to you calling me that name!"

"Call you what name?" Vincent asked.

"That name!"

"What name is that name?"

"You know what name."

He pretended ignorance. "Your Christian name? Roshelle?"

"Oh, never mind!" A hand spanned her forehead, a gesture of extreme frustration. She did not know how he always managed to pull her off a subject, especially when it was a grievous subject. She started anew. "This is not the point—"

"Ah, milady, I mean no harm to the maid," Bryce interrupted with a small measure of contriteness. "In truth, I have not in all my years met a soul so sweet or good as the maid Joan—"

"Do not describe Joan's goodness to me!"

"Well, I care for the girl and—"

"A false sentiment at worst," Roshelle snapped in renewed fury, doubting his sincerity. "A convenient one at best, and how both grate upon my ears like the howl of demons! They are convenient, no doubt, when you seek the easiest prey for your lust! And I will not have that," she swore with soft viciousness. "She is but a child, which makes your seduction little better than a raping—"

"Raping?" Bryce's face reddened with the accusation, and for a moment, he could not answer. Vincent started to step in, but Bryce held him back, wanting to answer the accusation himself. "Milady, you grievously do me a wrong by accusing me of this heinous deed, of my wanting the maid Joan only to vent my lust. You cannot assume to know my mind, let alone my heart. True, I am a man, and as that sorrowful creature, I allow there be a truth to what you say, but only a half-truth and one that needs—nay, demands—to be set beside my feelings for the girl. And these are simple, too: I find more happiness and ease with the maid Joan than with any other woman I have known. Her simple mind is an unexpected joy to me; unlike other women, she has no demands, no grievances, no mire of complexities I have to muck blindly through. You know her! She is all happiness and soft sighs, laughter and pleasure. Do not doubt that I care for her, and deeply."

Roshelle stared at him for a long moment. In the heat of the moment, she first tried to disbelieve these gentle sentiments, but her intuition would not let her. He did care for Joan. As everyone who ever knew Joan cared for her.

Dear Lord, help me here.

The only point that mattered was Joan's absolute safety, and Joan was only safe when she was within arm's reach. This man would take her away, or try to, if she did not stop him. She had to stop him. Despite the hefty price she had to pay in order to protect Joan, she would never forsake her. 'Twould be far easier to slit her wrists than to forsake Joan to the beast of Burgundy.

"Someday I shall come for her..."

Sudden fear and sadness came to her eyes, and Vincent was transfixed by it. 'Twas the sadness and yearning he saw in his dreams when she stood at a white tower. What on earth caused it?

A colorful robin crossed overhead and her blue eyes lifted to it. Papillion had once foreseen man with wings. A fanciful idea, and yet a man in Venice had drawn a picture of a machine that would make man fly like the winged creatures...

Papillion, help me.

She could only begin again. "I am sorry, but I fear even love does not matter—"

"No, of course not," Vincent agreed, nodding as if she walked a wise course and he with her. "Love matters not at all." He shook his head. "No doubt poor Joan is too feebleminded to know her feelings, indeed if she even has any feelings."

"That is not true!" Roshelle naturally took affront to this. "Of course Joan has feelings, just as everyone has feelings, and of course she knows what those feelings are—"

"Surely you do not imagine Joan could fall in love with a man?" Vincent now looked perplexed.

"Well, I do not know." The image of Joan's face as Bryce blew her kisses emerged in Roshelle's mind. "I suppose she might—"

"Ah, then," Vincent said smoothly, trying to follow her reasoning, "such a love could not be lasting."

"Do not be so sure of that—Joan is the most loyal person I know," Roshelle said, casting a mean glance at Cisely. "And her loyalty is far more tenacious than any-"

"Milady, then what be your objection?" Bryce wondered.

"Well..." She searched for another excuse, but her mind somehow fixed on an errant curl draped across Vincent's forehead, the lick of dark hair so reckless and, well, beguiling somehow. Why did he have to be so handsome? Perhaps if he were balding, short of stature or corpulent of frame, it would be easier to fight him.

"Yes?" Bryce pulled her impatiently back to the subject. "What be milady's objection?"

The idea occurred to her from seemingly out of the blue. "What if, God forbid, you get her with child?"

Bryce appeared insulted; indeed all the men abruptly straightened. "Milady, you do me dishonor. I have never abandoned my dependents."

"Indeed," Vincent added with a sharpness to his tone. “'I would not have a man who mistreated his dependents.''

Roshelle turned from one face to the next, the veracity of the sentiments writ in their voices and eyes. "I am thinking of Joan! She cannot care for herself, let alone a child. 'Twould be a disaster. No." She seized on this believable excuse. "Out of the question—"

"Aye." Vincent nodded, pretending to see her point again. "You would not want to help Joan care for this child. 'Twould probably be a great burden to you. You probably do not care for children at all—"

"Roshelle loves children!" Cisely appeared aghast at the idea. "All children! Why, half the children of Reales think of Roshelle as their mother. Have you not seen them following her about? And, why, she is even named godmother to at least a dozen—"

"Of course I love children, children being God's greatest gift to life, anyone's life, a joyful blessing, but—"

“
'Oh, Roshelle, do reflect!'' Cisely reached for her arm, the very idea swaying her gentle soul. "What if Joan did get with child? Would our hearts not love this child as our own? Would we not help Joan raise the child to a goodly Christian life?"

Fingers went to her forehead in frustration. "This is not the point, Cisely, as you, of all people, well know!"

"Yes?" Bryce questioned, all patience still, thinking Roshelle's confusing point—if there was a point—was the very reason Joan's simple mind was such an unexpected blessing to him. "And so what be the point? Do ye have another objection?"

The image of Joan being left alone in the rain emerged in her mind, a warning. "Yes, I do. I object to, to... my objection is—"

The thought disappeared as she found herself staring at an angry scar on Vincent's shoulder. Two fingers thick, the red gash ran from his shoulder blade down his chest. Her blue eyes followed the line with a queer fascination, seeing where it picked up on his arm, forming a savage dent in the smooth bronze skin covering the hard rock of his muscle. He was so strong, a skilled, seasoned warrior and so tall, too—

She shook her head to rid herself of the unpleasant train of thoughts. She simply could not step near him without losing her mind! Now what was she saying? "Oh! My objection is, is—"

Then Vincent observed with some small alarm, "You seem to be repeating yourself, milady."

"That is only because you keep interrupting me!"

Vincent appeared greatly offended. "Why, I have not interrupted you once."

"You are doing it now! This very minute—"

"Quite the contrary, sweetling." A dark brow rose. "I am standing here in all innocence, eagerly awaiting your words."

Roshelle seized on this. "There, you did it again!"