Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (58 page)

Easy words, not so easily accomplished. Because
whether he liked it or not, Robert de Tyre was already smitten.
Sabina had already grabbed hold of his heart and tucked it in her
pocket. And somehow Robert knew that he’d never get it back again.
Even if Sabina didn’t know it yet, his heart and soul belonged to
her forever.

Damnation,
Robert thought. Hell and damnation. It was a hopeless
situation, to be sure. Sabina wasn’t his to claim, after all. She
belonged to Lord Reginald. And Lord Reginald was known to kill men
who looked at him sideways. Robert could only imagine what his
employer might do to someone who tried to make a play for his
betrothed bride.

And besides, it was obvious that Sabina wouldn’t
return his affections anyway. She couldn’t stand him. And what
reason would she have to like Robert at all, let alone love him?
She knew him only as her captor, a bounty hunter sent to collect a
prize. She loathed and despised him, and had every reason to. He
couldn’t blame her for that. He was a mercenary soldier who would
be paid handsomely for forcibly delivering Sabina to a man she
loathed and despised even more than him—Lord Reginald.

Working as a mercenary bounty hunter and captor
wasn’t exactly the best way to win a lady’s heart. Robert had known
that going in. He’d always thought he’d live a simple, contented
life as a bachelor, only seeking the company of women who sold
their services for a living, just as he did. A mercenary’s life was
a lonely one, but it was also a life without attachments or
responsibilities. Robert had never taken well to responsibility;
earning just enough to keep his mother and sisters fed and clothed
and his tiny estate tended had always been more responsibility than
even he wanted to bear. A married man’s life—a wife, children, and
all that went with it—that was more responsibility than he ever
cared to have. Robert had thought his choice of career would ensure
he’d never even have to consider the possibility. And yet, in his
mind’s eye he could see Sabina living on his small farm in
Normandy, managing the household, ordering the servants about with
their son balanced on her hip. . . .

No.
He’d
never expected anything like this to happen. And it never would.
Because Lady Sabina of Angwyld simply wasn’t his to
have.

Fine. All the better, then. Because Robert de Tyre
just wasn’t the marrying kind. Wasn’t the fall-in-love-on-a-lark
kind, either. And yet, here he was, tangled up in a bigger mess
than he’d ever thought was possible. He supposed he could take
comfort in the fact that marrying Sabina was completely out of the
question.

But somehow that just made him feel worse.

His pulse quickened as he heard light women’s
footsteps approaching. Was it Lady Sabina? How would she respond to
seeing him in a monk’s robe? Would she speak to him at all, or
would she give him the silent treatment again? And why the hell did
he care?

The same group of white-robed novices he’d seen
before entered the room. One of them carried a rough wooden stool,
which she placed before the table. She motioned to one of the other
novices to sit down and eat. That one—a strikingly beautiful novice
that Robert hadn’t seen before—did so, and began to serve herself
bread and cheese.

Robert studied the novice’s face carefully. Her
hair, limbs and body were all robed in white; only the perfect oval
of her face showed beneath the heavy wimple. He watched her pick up
a piece of bread, lay a cutting of cheese upon it, take a bite and
begin to chew. Then the sudden realization hit him—this new novice
was Lady Sabina, clothed in borrowed nuns’ attire while her gown
and robe were cleaned.

He gingerly stepped forward. “Y-your Ladyship?” he
stammered, suddenly feeling like a timid schoolboy. “I trust the
novices cared for you well?”

She gave him a single nod, her mouth still full of
bread and cheese.

The eldest novice motioned for Robert to join Sabina
at the table. “Please bring another stool for our honored guest,”
she instructed one of her fellow novices, who scurried away and
returned a moment later with another rough three-legged stool.
“Please eat these modest provisions. One of my Sisters shall bring
you both a mug of lager for your refreshment as well. The abbess
shall be ready to receive you when you have eaten and drunk your
fill.”

The novices departed then, leaving Robert and Sabina
alone together. Robert thought that incredibly odd; his experience
as a guest in abbeys and monasteries had always taught him that men
and women of the cloth never left unmarried members of the opposite
sex alone in a room together. Something was afoot, and he needed to
know what.

“Why did the novices leave, milady?”

Sabina shrugged her shoulders and chewed her bread
and cheese in silence. She cut herself a small portion of salt pork
and popped it into her mouth, but said nothing.

“Why do you not answer me, woman?”

Sabina chewed, swallowed, then shot Robert an
exasperated look. “Because it’s uncouth to talk with one’s mouth
full, that’s why.”

“That’s not what I mean, Your Ladyship. You’ve given
me the silent treatment ever since we entered the abbey.”

“I am merely trying to blend in. Monks and nuns take
a vow of silence, after all.”

“Not until their final vows, and even then only a
select few remain completely silent. It is a test of spiritual will
and devotion, not an annoying game.”

Sabina cut herself another slice of bread. “Why do
you care what I do or do not say anyway? I am your prisoner. I
would think you’d rather I’d stay quiet.”

Robert pounded his fist on the table. Sabina was
impossible, truly impossible. When he wanted her to speak, she
stayed silent, and when he wanted silence, she ran her mouth like a
gristmill wheel. Infernal woman! What on earth did he see in her,
anyway?

Quite a lot, it seemed.

Sabina finished eating and passed the single
trencher and knife across the table to Robert. “Tell me, Robert.
What do you intend to discuss with the abbess? And why must I be
present for it? Since it seems that I shall never be taken in as a
novice here, what reason do you have for allowing me into the
abbess’ presence?” She dusted the bread crumbs off her hands and
cocked her head at him. “I might use it as an opportunity to plead
my case with her, you know.”

Robert was taken aback. He hadn’t expected her to
question his actions and authority so directly. No woman he’d ever
known was so audacious—not even his own mother. But then again,
Lady Sabina was no ordinary woman.

He sliced into the slab of salt pork, searching for
a suitable answer. “I don’t want you out of my sight,” he finally
said. “You seem to have made friends of those novices, and I can’t
take the chance that you might use their friendship somehow to
escape. However unlikely that might be. Glastonbury is heavily
guarded.” He popped a morsel of salt pork into his mouth. “Besides,
I assure you that you ever becoming a novice here would be quite
impossible. The abbess would never risk offending her greatest
financial supporter outside of the King by allowing his betrothed
bride sanctuary here.”

Sabina sighed and slumped forward on her stool.
“This isn’t the only abbey in England,” she muttered.

“No, but it’s the only one you’ll ever see the
interior of, at least as long as you’re under my control,
milady.”

One of the novices reappeared, carrying a small keg
of abbey-brewed beer. She poured them both a mug of lager, then
turned on her heel and left them alone again. But why? Leaving an
unmarried couple alone together broke every item of abbey protocol
Robert knew. It annoyed him, unsettled him greatly—not to mention
it only made his smitten discomfort in Sabina’s presence even
worse. “Is there a particular reason why the novices keep leaving
us alone together, Your Ladyship?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You very well do. We are unmarried, of the opposite
sex. No abbey in all of Christendom would allow us to be left alone
together, even for just a minute or two. It’s against St.
Augustine’s Rule.”

Sabina raised an eyebrow. “And what do you know of
St. Augustine’s Rule, milord?”

“I was educated at an abbey cathedral school as a
boy,” he explained. “I was groomed to become a monk myself for a
time, though necessity prevented that from ever happening.”

“And what necessity was that, pray tell? Your
complete lack of moral character, perhaps?”

Robert ground his teeth. “Strange you would make
such an observation, milady, considering you complete lack of all
ladylike manners and decorum yourself. I wonder how your mother and
father came to raise you in such an undignified manner.”

“My mother and father taught me that honesty is
important above all,” she retorted.

“There is a time for honesty and a time for
restraint,” Robert growled. “Methinks you need some schooling in
the latter.”

Sabina had no reply to this latest jab. She sat in
silence, stewing in her own angry juices.

The appearance of the abbess’ handmaiden broke the
tension, at least for a moment. The young servant looked only to be
about eight or nine. A foundling, probably—unwanted infant girls
were frequently left on the steps of abbeys and churches for nuns
to raise. Her hair was loose and she wore only a plain brown linen
shift tied at the waist with rope. “Reverend Mother will see you
now,” she said in a tiny plaintive voice. “Please follow me.”

Robert emptied his beer tankard in one gulp and went
after the little girl. Sabina left hers untouched, took a deep
breath, and followed them both down a narrow stone hall.

The abbess’ private chambers were
built much like a side chapel on a church nave, with a sloping
cavernous ceiling supported by flying stone buttresses. Three high
stained-glass windows spread across one entire wall, all in the
most precious and rare of colors—deep blue and blood red—with
scenes depicting the lives of Saints Augustine and Joseph of
Arimathea. The nearest window, which depicted an image of the
Virgin Mary, contained a shiny new pane of glass inscribed with the
words
Donum ex Reginaldus Guillaumae ad
majorem Dei gloriam—
a gift of Reginald of
Guillaume, to the greater glory of God
.
It seemed there was no place in
the abbey that did not feel Lord Reginald’s influence. Sabina’s
heart sank; she knew there was no hope for her cause
now.

The abbess was a well-preserved
and graceful woman of about sixty. Her face was deeply lined
beneath the stark edges of her wimple, but she was still quite
pleasant to look upon. Robert noted that despite her advanced age,
she still possessed all of her teeth, and they remained quite white
and shiny.
Must be the clean
living
, he thought to himself. She dressed
in the same simple black habit of any Benedictine nun who had taken
her final vows, and could have been any ordinary nun. Only the
heavy gold jewel-encrusted cross that hung on a thick chain about
her neck denoted her rank as the abbess of the wealthiest abbey in
all of England, or even all of Western Europe, for that matter. But
Robert noted that a few of the jewel settings on it were missing
their stones, concrete evidence that the abbey was feeling the
pinch. She stood behind her massive writing desk, an ornate work of
art carved out of oak and hawthorn. “Master Robert, Lady Sabina,
welcome to Glastonbury,” she said in a deep, resonant voice that
sounded like prayer itself. “Won’t you sit down?”

The abbess motioned to two heavy
oak chairs that were completely gilded and lined in precious red
velvet.An even more ornate chair waited for the abbess behind her
desk. They were like the chairs of kings; Sabina had never seen
anything like them before. She’d long known the wealth and the
power of the Church, but those few chairs alone were likely valued
at more than her father’s entire estate. “Sit—in
these
chairs, Reverend
Mother?” she stammered, suddenly intimidated. How on earth had she
ever thought her mother’s meager jewels would have been enough to
buy the abbess’ favor when the woman sat on immeasurable wealth
itself?

“Do not fear my furniture, milady,” the abbess said,
reading her thoughts. “These chairs are but worldly objects,
nothing in comparison to what awaits us all in Paradise. They were
bequeathed to the abbey by King Canute, dead these last hundred
years, so perhaps they symbolize how all good things of this earth
must end, sometimes by violence and fire.”

The abbess’ words and voice were calming. Sabina
relaxed for the first time in several days. “Master Robert, what
brings you and Her Ladyship to the abbey?”

The abbess’ piercing gray eyes showed Robert that
she already knew the answer to that question and more. But since
she’d asked, Robert knew he had no choice but to tell her anyway in
his own words. “Her Ladyship attempted to escape the duty of her
impending marriage to your friend and benefactor Lord Reginald de
Guillaume by riding here to Glastonbury alone. It was her intention
to ask you, Reverend Mother, for protection and cloister behind
these walls by taking the veil. Her Ladyship’s fiancé sent me to
prevent that from happening.”

“I see,” the abbess said, her gentle yet stern voice
never wavering. “Is this true, milady?”

Sabina gave a single nod. The abbess’ probing eyes
seemed to strip her naked; she had to look away.

“I see.” The abbess reached across the desk and laid
her wrinkled hand upon Sabina’s smooth one. “Lady Sabina, I hope
you understand that I am running an abbey, not an inn. These walls
are not meant as an escape from the world, if your place is truly
in the world. Of course you know as well as I that many women in
this country and others take the veil rather than live in a
miserable marriage, but I only accept those women who are truly
called to God when they do so. Methinks that you are not truly
called to God. Am I right, milady?”