Faerie (28 page)

Where was the man whose hands had closed about her throat while his brown eyes gleamed with such evil pleasure?

She must not think of it. It would only bring on the pain. She was resolved. She’d had the sense knocked out of her and had her mind scrambled.

At the end of the day, the villagers trudged home, for they had no wish to remain within the walls of a Norman castle unless they must. Not even the most vulnerable, the aged, infirm, and mothers with tiny babes, would stay.

Yet, Cyne had said, they felt secure in knowing as much of their harvest and foodstuffs as possible were stored safely behind the gates, lest raiders scour the countryside and burn whatever they could not steal. How odd it was that the common folk trusted their fate so greatly to their Norman lord, this man who was now her husband, who had vowed to protect the villagers as much as his own men. And they had seen Philippe risk his life to protect Cyne as well as her.

At the long trestle table set up for supper, Philippe carved slim slices of pork and lamb and laid them neatly on her trencher. The aroma of the delicious juices drifted into her face, making her salivate. She could not remember ever being so hungry. Or so tired. She watched impatiently as he trimmed the meat into delicate strips. She was no delicate maiden who needed her food minced for her. Yet she was so tired, she almost wished he would chew it for her as well. Even do the swallowing.

“You have worked hard today,” said Philippe. “A lady should not have to do more than ply her needle in her solar.”

“It’s my nature,” she answered, and thought she sounded a bit too gruff. “I’m fond of my needlework, but restlessness overtakes me. And this is no time for maidenly airs.”

She saw a smirk play on his lips, and he looked down at the meat he had carved so carefully. “Such maidenly airs would play you false, my long-legged wife.”

Her face filled with a fiery flush. “You thought my long legs fine enough this afternoon, kind, handsome husband.”

The sudden flash of his startled brown eyes as he stared at her took her by surprise as well. Quickly, she averted her gaze and began to pick at the slender strips of mutton, though now she had no appetite for them.

“Aye,” he said, “I did. And I do still. I would not have you turn delicate and squeamish now. If I must ever leave my castle in your hands, I must know you have both body and mind to protect it, and yourself.”

“Your castle, is it now?”

“You know it is. Though I did not wish it any more than you.”

“So you say, esteemed knight and revered vassal of the king.”

His jaw jutted into a hard line, for he had not missed the sharp edge of her jab. “You speak rightly,” he replied, drawing out the words into carefully measured syllables. He added, “Lovely lady.”

Abnormal silence fell upon the diners, and only faint clinks and clunks could be heard. To a man, the knights studied their trenchers with unusual interest. Leonie felt the flush pervade her entire body. It was not one of embarrassment, but one of shame. She had spoken harshly to her husband in front of his knights. If he were a brutal, violent man, she knew his hand could fly at her mouth faster than she could flinch away, and none would fault him. Instead he admonished her with a compliment. He did not think her lovely, nor ladylike, but all the same, he had given the compliment, not a vicious slap. He had not spoken ill of her before others. As she had of him.

Well, he had begun it.

Well, a good wife never derided her husband. And there was only one thing to do.

“Your pardon, lord husband. I mistook your meaning.”

“Aye, haps you did. Methinks you know not your own charm.” The tip of his tongue glossed his lower lip with enticing moisture. “Sweet bride.”

Muffled chuckles floated about the room, coming from who-knew-which mouths.

“Gracious and well-favored lord,” she mumbled back.

Eyes full of curious twinkling peered fleetingly from the knights about the table, then as swiftly darted back beneath their hooded lids.

“Lovely, gentle, demure lady,” he answered.

Leonie choked on her drink. Dark wine sprayed on the white linen. The deathly silence as she coughed told her the knights were frozen as they sat, and Philippe slapped carefully on her back. She waved him off as she caught her breath, and finally sat back, leaning back her head and breathing a loud sigh of relief.

“If he continues to flatter her, haps she’ll need to use the wine to dye all the tablecloths,” Hugh said.

The chuckles about the table had an oddly tenuous sound to them, but Leonie broke into a new burst of laughter.

“They say you do not lie, Philippe le Peregrine,” she said, still catching the odd cough in her throat between her words. “They say you seek peace through sleek words of truth, so that all believe you and fall under your spell. But I say to all, I am none of those things you call me. Though I was born a lady, I am my aunt’s bane, for I never remember to be one.”

Around the long trestle table, the knights roared their approval and pounded their crude metal tankards and wooden mazers to the rhythm of their cheers.

Hugh rose from the bench, lifting his wooden mazer high. “I say the lady speaks the truth, for never have we seen one like her. Yet I say our lord does not lie, for he has been enchanted by her wondrous spell.
Lovely
is not quite the word, yet I do not know what it might be, for we would not have you be any other than what you are, my lady. Cheers, then, to the lady’s long legs that saved the day!”

“
Holá! Holá!
” the soldiers cheered, and pounded their tankards on the table again.

“And to her long arms that shoot an arrow so straight, Durham’s archers flee in fear,” shouted another knight.

“Our warrior lady,” quipped Philippe quietly.

She thinned her lips at his remark. That was what she was to him. Something no woman wished a man to think of her. But she could not blame him, for he had wished for none of this. At least he had some respect for her, if not as a woman. She could not remember any time when she had blushed in so maidenly a fashion, and oddly, too, for such an unmaidenly act.

“You forget the boy,” Leonie said, for she had to say something. “It was his quick thinking that saved us.”

“Aye, to Sigge,” Philippe said, lifting his cup. “He has a knight’s heart. I shall make him your page when this war is ended. For now, I cannot spare him from the forge.”

Leonie sidled a glance at Sigge where he sat beside his brother, and watched his face fall and shoulders droop. She sighed, knowing Sigge’s dream. He did not want to be a lady’s page. Even in this small gathering, his place at the supper table far below the salt signified to all that the blacksmith’s son could never achieve knighthood.

“But enough for now,” Philippe said, rising. “We must rest. Tomorrow is like to be troublesome.”

“Aye, lord,” replied Hugh, wiping his chin as he also stood. “Have you heard from Rufus?”

“None of our couriers has returned. I hoped to hear from Northumbria, but that man also has not returned. We have been isolated, my brave knights. The battles will soon begin. Set the watch with frequent reliefs. We shall all rise before cock’s crow on the morrow, and very quietly. We do not wish to signal our readiness to the enemy.”

The knights became solemn. All mumbled quietly. Leonie took Philippe’s arm as he led her to the small, primitive solar behind the hall.

“Your little friend was not as happy as I expected.”

“He would rather be your page than mine, gracious lord.”

He shook his head. “It cannot be. The king would never allow it. A knight’s page must be one who could become a knight himself.”

“Was there never a tanner’s grandson who rose to become a king?”

He kept his gaze fixed ahead, but Leonie spied the telltale jutting of his jaw that said he would become stubborn about this. “Do not compare him to the Conqueror. Never has there been one like him. Sigge is the grandson of a traitor. That is what condemns him.”

Well, she was stubborn too. But she was learning to be less strident in her requests. “The Conqueror was known to be generous to his foes. His son has many times been forgiving, also. Did he not forgive de Mowbray and his uncle, the Bishop of Coutances?”

“It cannot be, Leonie. Can you not understand that? Some things a king will never forgive, and betrayal is one of them. Whatever was the enmity between the Conqueror and Severin de Brieuse, we know little. But the Conqueror considered himself generous in allowing the son to be raised by a blacksmith instead of putting him to death with his father. Do not open old wounds. Rufus would not be pleased.”

They reached the doorway to the solar, and he pulled back the draping tapestry, one that she sorely wished to replace when she was able to make a new one. His voice turned gentle as he guided her, and she allowed it, for at least that was recognition of her womanliness. “Come now,” he said, “you are very tired. I like
it not that you must work so hard. But at least you are strong and capable. Let us get our rest now.”

“Surely you are very tired too.”

“Aye. We must sleep while we can.”

Philippe pulled his tunic over his head and unbound his hose. Leonie quietly turned her back. It was an empty, hungry feeling to see his beautiful, lean body and know there would be nothing between them but dreams. She blew out the tallow candle stub he had carried into the chamber, then unbound her hair from its ribbons. This was such a primitive place, with no chests or tables other than those brought in her dowry train.

“What worries you, wife?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Come to bed, then.”

“I must comb my hair. If I do not, tomorrow I will sorely regret it.”

He made some sort of rough grunt, and the bed ropes groaned as he rolled over. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he had turned his back to her.

Leonie picked up her ivory comb and tiptoed to the roughly cut window, wondering as she had so many times since coming here why her father had made no effort in his years at Bosewood to build a decent stone tower. She looked out over the quiet, moonlight-bathed upper bailey at all the unfinished work. Only the lord who already made the noises of sleep stood between the Scots and the survival of England, and now he must face Durham’s assault with only this tumbledown castle.

Hank by hank, she combed her long curls. Not a person stirred, other than those walking along the parapet of the stone wall. Slowly as she eased the tangles, combing first the tips in a small section, then moving higher up until she could run the comb smoothly from scalp to tip, she went through one strand after another. When at last she had completed her task she parted
her hair into three sections to braid it. She looked back to the bed to her sleeping husband.

Except that he was not asleep. He lay on the bed, propped on one elbow, watching. His eyes grew hazy, seeming like smoke in the darkness. She knew that look. She was one of the Faeriekind in that way, that the gaze of a man whose thoughts were fixed on sexual desire was never a secret. Could it be that he wanted her, though he denied it so completely? But all men were that way, she knew for a fact. They were not discriminate creatures when it came to their desires. What was close was good enough.

She would have turned away, except she could not. The very look of his eyes compelled her. Her heart began to speed, pounding, and something hungry inside her clawed at her insides, wanting to be released. She gathered her hair at her neck, slowly shifting it over her shoulder to cascade in thick waves to her knees. His steamy eyes followed every movement, as if they touched her skin and were like fingers playing through her hair. Her lips went dry, and she wet them with her tongue, aware that the bright moonlight played over her face, betraying her every move.

His back straightened abruptly as he sat up in bed. She held her breath, her skin tingling as she watched him rise in the dark, fully nude, with his shaft hard and huge, as it had been in her dreams, and she could imagine its heat throbbing in her hands. She bit her lip.

He was all bulging thighs and arms, with the magnificent curves only a huge, muscular man could have, broad shoulders and expansive chest tapering to tight muscles that rippled over his abdomen. And he was slowly, very slowly, moving forward, his eyes fixed on her, a rumpled frown on his brow.

She froze where she stood, sudden terror lacing through her like lightning. Was it anger? The erect state of his shaft, the focused, yet perversely hazy predatory gaze as he approached,
said something else. Had she been wrong when she had begun to doubt his guilt of the crime against her in the woods? Did he mean now to put an end to this farcical marriage?

Nay. She let the shiver pass down her spine and fade away. She had made her decision, and she would not back down. Her resolution once more hardened as she awaited whatever was to be her fate.

He moved to the narrow window, standing before her. The bright light of the full moon silvered his hard flesh, outlining the heavy veins beneath his bare skin where they meandered over his muscular arms. The deep furrow in his brow shifted oddly as his hand touched the thick hank of her hair that fell over her shoulder, and he lifted it into the light.

Her own brow wrinkled in confusion, and then she saw it was not a frown of anger, but the strain of some deep sadness, a hungry yearning left suddenly bare and visible. She caught her breath at the starkness of his pain. Nay, not anger at all.

What is it that gnaws at your soul, Peregrine? It’s more than the wife you lost. What is it?

But she dared not ask aloud. She knew in her heart he could not share it with her.

He released a deep sigh. Still fondling her long curl, he said, “Turn around. I will braid it for you.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it and did as he requested. Perhaps he could not look in her eyes any longer. He had shared, but just for a moment, and all she saw was his pain. But she knew as well he could not go further with it.

Behind her back, he gathered her hair into a bunch at the back of her neck. With each grazing of his fingers as they plaited her hair, touch and touch, stopping to comb through the strand, then braid again, tiny caresses set her afire again and again. As he reached her waist, she swooped her hand behind her neck to lift the braid higher, the way she’d always done for Ealga. ’Twas a
practical thing to do, but she knew she did it so his hands would not stop touching her.