The Love Knot (33 page)

'Gladly,' Geoffrey said against his hands. Then he unclasped them and held them out before him. 'At least we're not in chains.'

Oliver said nothing, and thought that chains might be more bearable than this polite house arrest which was neither captivity nor freedom. He wandered back to the window. Louis de Grosmont was still in view, talking to a woman wearing a red dress and dark cloak. Then he swept her up in his arms and bore her behind a storage shed and out of Oliver's sight. His sweetheart, no doubt.

Oliver thought of Catrin and ached.

It had been a long road for Catrin, and the great keep at Rochester was both a welcome and a daunting sight. Now that she was close to her goal she was nervous, all the doubts and anxieties that she had suppressed on her journey threatening to overwhelm her. Faced by the fear that Oliver might not be there at all, she was almost tempted to turn back, on the principle that not knowing was better than knowing the worst.

'Mistress?' Leaning on his quarterstaff, Godard looked at her quizzically.

He had been her escort and protection on her journey from Bristol to Rochester, and she had been glad of his enormous bulk. People thought twice about tangling with him, even if it was only to pass the time of day, and it was he who carried the pouch of ransom money.

The Countess had tried to dissuade her from her quest, but Catrin was adamant. She had to know what had happened to

Oliver, had to find out at first hand whether he was safe or dead. Not for hell or high water, for the perils of war or personal danger, was she prepared to sit and wait.

Hearing that Earl Robert and those captured with him were being housed at Winchester, they had travelled there, only to find the city in smoking ruins, destroyed by the running battle between the supporters of the Empress and the King. The castle was intact, but it housed no prisoners. Robert of Gloucester had been taken to the greater safety of Rochester in Kent.

So now, deep in enemy territory, they were about to enter one of the most formidable keeps in the kingdom. Strangely enough, although Catrin was sick with nerves at the prospect of discovering news of Oliver, she felt no fear at entering Rochester itself. Soldiers abounded, but she and Godard had been left in peace thus far. William d'Ypres was a strict commander who demanded high standards of his men. She hoped that he would be amenable to her plea for Oliver's release. Surely an ordinary, landless knight could be of small political importance.

'Mistress,' said Godard again, 'why have we stopped?'

'To summon courage.' Catrin gave him a wan smile. Dismounting, she unfastened the bundle strapped to the mule's saddle. 'Besides, I'm travel-stained and in no fit state to plead my cause.'

Godard took the mule's bridle as Catrin disappeared behind a group of young hazel trees growing at the roadside. Behind their trunks, Catrin unpinned her cloak and stripped off her plain, homespun gown, replacing it with the crimson one that the Countess had given her last year. It was creased from the journey, but that could not be helped. At least the fabric and cut were of the best quality and would ensure her access beyond the gate. She replaced her plain wimple with the one of cream silk and secured it with a filigree circlet. Finally, she repinned her cloak with a fine silver brooch given to her by a grateful client and stepped back on to the road.

Godard gazed with approval, but not too much astonishment, upon the transformation from industrious peasant to lady of substance. 'Only pitfall is that when they see you dressed like that, they'll think you can afford to buy him back at double the price,' he commented.

Catrin wrinkled her nose. 'I had thought about that myself, but it cannot be helped. If I gown myself as a poor woman, then they will not let me past the outer bailey or listen to what I have to say. Looking as I do now, at least I have a certain authority.' She gnawed her lower lip. 'He might not even be here. For all that I know, we could have ridden past his grave in Winchester.' Her voice shook.

'No, mistress, I do not believe that,' Godard said stoutly. 'He is here.'

Catrin looked at him and swallowed her panic. 'Yes,' she said. 'He has to be.'

Cupping his hands for her foot, Godard boosted her back into the mule's saddle, and they set out upon the final half mile to the castle.

The gate guards were watchful, but their focus was upon the comings and goings of men of military rank bearing weapons. They gave Godard a cursory look because of his height and bulk, then dismissed him as a lady's prudent insurance against assault. To Catrin they yielded deference, and when she told them she had business with Lord William or his senior representatives, they directed her towards the hall without question.

Leaving Godard and the mule in the bailey, Catrin took the ransom money and made her way further into Rochester's defences. There was cold sweat on her palms and a sick churning in her stomach. The noise and bustle in the ward buffeted her like a sea around a rock and carried her forward in sharp surges towards the main building which rose above all the little islands of workshops, houses and storage sheds. Patterns of braided stone decorated the arched window spaces as they did at Bristol. She strained her neck, gazing towards the wall walk, and wondered if Oliver was locked up in one of the rooms, or whether they had imprisoned him in the gloom of the cellars as they had now done with Stephen at Bristol.

She sucked in a deep breath, summoned her courage and prepared to enter the lion's den and find out. But as she took her first, determined step, her way was blocked by a soldier striding in the opposite direction. When she side-stepped, so did he, then apologised with a laugh.

'We should become partners in the dance,' he said gallantly.

Catrin had been keeping her eyes down as befitted a modest woman, but now she raised them to his face and her reply died on her lips. Black curls; hot, dark eyes; white, even smile. 'Lewis?' she strangled out, and her hand went to her throat for suddenly it was difficult to breathe.

The laughter left his expression. He looked her up and down. 'Sweet Jesu in heaven,' he whispered and, reaching out, he took her arm. 'Catty?'

She felt the pressure of his fingers, the solidity of bone that challenged her disbelief. 'You're dead,' she gasped. 'I grieved over you so hard that I thought I would die myself. You cannot be real!' Drowning, sinking, she clutched for air, but there was only Lewis within her desperate grasp, and it seemed as if he was pulling her down. 'I don't feel well,' she said as her knees began to give way. She heard his oath of alarm as he moved to catch her and felt the darkness of his embrace close around her.

He swept her up in his arms and, ignoring the curious glances cast his way, bore her to a bench situated outside the kitchen entrance. Her head lolled against his shoulder; one of her braids tickled his hand. The smell of dried rose petals drifted from her garments and filled his nose with the scent of her. Tenderly, he set her down and took a moment to examine her properly without being examined himself.

Her face had lost the plumpness of adolescence, and the flesh clung smoothly to her bones. The curve of eyebrow was the same; she still did not pluck them even though it was the fashion. The tilt of her nose and set of her jaw reminded him with a pang of times past. It had not all been bad. His eyes strayed beyond her ice-white face to her garments. Despite being crumpled, her crimson gown was that of a wealthy woman, as was her wimple, and the fillets securing the ends of her braids were of polished silver. Whatever she had done with herself after he left, she had made her way well in the world. He looked at her hands and saw with a slight frown that she no longer wore the Celt gold wedding rings he had given her. Instead, on her heart finger, there was a different ring: gold in the shape of a triple knot.

'So, Catty, you've got yourself a man of wealth,' he murmured, with more than a pang of jealousy. His frown deepened as he looked at her hands. Wealthy or not, she still worked for her living. Her nails were clipped short and her skin had a slightly rough texture that suggested she spent her days doing more than spinning in a bower. Why, he wondered, was she here at Rochester? And what was he going to do about it?

Opening her eyes, the first thing Catrin saw was a tuft of grass growing through a dried-out crack in the soil and, either side of it, the toes of her shoes peeping out from the hem of her red gown. She realised that she was sitting on a bench, bending over, her head between her knees, but the wherefore and why escaped her.

'Drink this,' said a solicitous male voice. She was drawn gently into a sitting position and a cup placed in her hand. Lean brown fingers touched hers and, with a nauseous jolt, she remembered. A look into the face bending round into hers dispelled all notions that her imagination had been playing tricks.

'Lewis.' Her voice trembled. Once again the flutters of panic began in her stomach and tightened her throat. She tried to leap to her feet, but he held her fast.

'Drink first,' he said. 'I know it's a shock.'

Catrin tilted the cup to her lips with shaking hands. It was raw, red wine, sweetened with honey and spiked with Galwegian usquebaugh. She swallowed, coughed, retched and swallowed again, tears filling her eyes. The drink hit her stomach like a hot coal and flashed through her body. She sat back on the bench and breathed deeply, and each breath was filled with the scent of him; of orris root and horses, of a healthy, vigorous man in the full flow of life. 'Tell me,' she said shakily. 'I need to know.'

He drank from a cup of his own. She saw the familiar way he pouched it in his cheeks before he swallowed, and the unfamiliar line of a scar moving as he washed the wine around his mouth. What she had thought of as shattered bones and corrupted flesh was living, breathing, warm and vital.

'I killed Padarn ap Rhys,' he said. 'It was in fair fight, but do you think his followers would have accepted the outcome? It would be a matter of their clan's honour to see me dead. So I decided to "kill" myself before they did it for me.'

'And left me a grieving widow with never a word, so that you could save your own hide.' Catrin's lips drew back from her teeth as a spark of anger lit from within and carried her forward from that awful day on the banks of the Wye.

'I was intending to return for you.'

Catrin gave a cracked laugh. She felt as if all of her was breaking into little pieces; shattering like a fine and brittle mirror. 'When? Just how long were you intending me to wait? You must have an overbearing sense of your own attraction to think that I would still be dutifully pining four years later!' She took another vicious drink of the wine. Had she not, she would have thrown it in his face.

'I do not blame you for being angry, just as I don't blame you for not waiting.' He steepled his hands together in a prayerful gesture and gave her an engaging look from beneath his dark-winged brows. 'But I am telling you the truth. I—'

'Then it will be for the first time in your life!' Catrin interrupted furiously. 'How dare you say that you do not blame me when it was you who abandoned me, and in a fight over your seduction of someone else's wife!' Her hand trembled on the cup. 'I thought you were dead. You can stay dead!' She sought refuge in the burn of her rage, but her defences had been breached. Just the sight and scent of him brought everything back. Despite her rage, or perhaps part of it, there was a hot sensitivity between her thighs.

Lewis shook his head sorrowfully. 'First you say tell me; then, when I try, you bite my head off. I know I deserve it, but at least do me the grace of listening.'

She glared and drank, saying nothing, feeling the ground slip from under her feet.

He took her hand and rubbed her fingers gently with the ball of his thumb. 'I do not deny that I have been untrustworthy in the past, Catty. I took my responsibilities lightly. I misbehaved. I know that I was not a good husband

Catrin blinked as treacherous tears filled her eyes. She pressed her lips together and looked down at her lap.

'I admit that I flirted with the wife of Padarn ap Rhys. I admit that I visited whore houses with the other soldiers, but such women meant nothing to me. I thought I was proving myself, when all I was doing was being a fool and playing with dross when I should have been at home with my gold.'

Catrin sniffed. 'Spare me your honeyed tongue, I knew what you were like.'

'Well, that is the meat of the matter,' he said, still stroking her hand. 'I was like it then, Catty, but I'm not any more. On the day I fought with Padarn, I swore an oath to change. In a sense I truly am dead. I left the old Lewis on the banks of the Wye that day. I'm now Louis de Grosmont, and I serve William d'Ypres, Lord of Kent.' Very gently, he tilted up her chin on his forefinger, betraying the glitter in her eyes. 'I was going to come back for you, Cat, I promise I was. But not until I had proved myself worthy.'

'And you expected me to wait, thinking that you were dead?' She jerked her head away, but the wobble of her voice betrayed her.

'I thought you might stay a widow longer than this,' he said, and touched the gold knot ring on her heart finger. 'But then I made many misjudgements back then.' There was sorrow in his tone, and perhaps the faintest note of reproach.

'Yes, you did.'

'Are you then remarried?'

Catrin swallowed and shook her head. 'But for Winchester, I would be.'

'Ah. You lost him there then?' Although he spoke with gentleness and compassion, his eyes were sharp.