The Warrior's Wife (4 page)

 

“Katherine?!”

Her father’s bellow rose from well within the hall beyond the curtain, the sound of it barely loud enough for Kate to hear above the thrumming crescendo of the ending dance. As quiet as his call was it still punctured the haze of sensation that held her in thrall.

Kate’s eyes opened. From this angle, she could see the forceful thrust of Rafe’s nose and the fringe of his eyelashes splayed against his cheeks. Although her lips still clung to his, she frowned. What in God’s name was she doing kissing this stranger?

As if Rafe sensed the change in her, he made a quiet sound that mingled pleading and disappointment then cupped her face in his hands. His palms were warm and hard against her skin. The stroke of his thumbs over her cheeks sent another wave of heat flowing through Kate. She forgot he was a stranger and that the only thing standing between her and her sin’s exposure was a single curtain. Her eyes closed, her mouth again softening beneath his as she lost herself once more to the pleasure he made in her.

“Katherine! For God’s sake, where are you?” Her father’s voice boomed into the alcove from just beyond the flimsy drape.

Kate jerked away from Rafe. Mary save her, her sire was about to catch her behaving like some lightskirt! Lady Adele’s promise of death at her father’s hand tore through her.

Instantly, Rafe grabbed her back to him, shifting so his greater bulk would shield her from the hall should the hanging move. At the same time, he pulled her head down into the curve of his shoulder, knocking her headgear askew as he did so.

“Ssh,” he breathed in warning.

As if she needed to be warned! Trembling, Kate cowered against him and prayed for heavenly mercy. A futile exercise. God didn’t grant favors to a woman skipping blithely down disobedience’s road toward fornication.

For what seemed like years she listened to the drum of Rafe’s heart against her ear and the rush of breath into his lungs. Outside the alcove the musicians brought the romp to a screeching halt. Dancers and listeners alike cheered and stomped in appreciation.

“Katherine! Katherine de Fraisney! Where are you?” her father called again, his voice more distant this time.

Kate’s head whirled in relief. Perhaps God was a more forgiving man than she thought. Now all she need do was slip from this place without her sire seeing her, and no one would be the wiser over the wrong she’d done. She straightened in Rafe’s embrace.

“Release me,” she commanded in a whisper.

“Must I?” Rafe asked with a quiet, shaken laugh, even as his embrace loosened. “I vow my lady, I’d rather die than live another moment without you next to me. Your kiss leaves me as weak-kneed as a babe.”

Shame painted hot streaks across Kate’s cheeks. How tactless of him to jest about a moral lapse that she swore here and now she would never, ever repeat. “Not my kiss, but yours. You kissed me,” she retorted, squarely placing blame where it belonged.

“I may have started it but I think me it was you who set us afire,” he replied, laughter heavy in his quiet voice.

Kate frowned at such nonsense and lifted his hands off her hips. “Say no more,” she commanded. “Only stand sideways so I can pass you. You will wait here a decent length of time before following,” she told him, in case he hadn’t the sense to understand the need for such caution.

“But of course, my lady,” he replied, shifting to the side and holding up his hands as if to show he had no intention of keeping her.

Kate’s frown deepened. There was something in his voice that said he was laughing at her. For no reason Kate could name his amusement reminded her of Ami’s charge of innocence. Stung, Kate lifted her chin and eased past him.

With great care, she peered around the hanging’s edge, looking in the direction from which her father’s voice had last come. Lord Humphrey stood a goodly distance off to her right, his back to the alcove as he scanned the hall for his missing daughter. Relief surged through Kate, strong enough to make her vision swim.

“There you are! I wondered where you’d gone to ground,” Ami cried from only a foot or so to Kate’s left.

With a startled yelp, Kate sprang from the alcove and whirled to face her new friend. Ami’s face was yet flushed from dancing. Beneath her veil, fine tendrils of brown hair had escaped her plaits to coil against her gleaming throat. As she eyed Kate her smooth brows rose. “You’ve lost your cap, Kate. It’s dangling to one side of your head.”

Guilt made Kate snatch off her headgear, then scramble for some explanation only to realize she stood but a hair’s breadth from catastrophe. If Ami saw Rafe appear, there’d be no explaining any of this save for Kate to confess she was a lightskirt when she wasn’t. Truly, she wasn’t. She grabbed her friend’s arm.

“Come, Ami, back to our table, where you can help me repin my cap,” she said, frantic to lead the woman away from the embrasure.

Ami’s body turned to follow Kate, but her head still looked toward the wall. The young widow’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened. Kate looked behind her and groaned. Sure enough, Rafe had slipped from the embrasure, his own cap in hand. With his back to the closed curtain, he eyed the two women in front of him.

"Lady de la Beres," Rafe said to Ami, offering a brief bow as if nothing at all were amiss.

Hopelessness washed over Kate. This was the end of her friendship with Ami. No good woman kept company with a lightskirt.

Ami whirled on Kate, her expression alive with fright. "You were in there with him?" she cried, then shot a frantic glance in Lord Humphrey’s direction. When she saw Kate’s sire had his back to them, she breathed out in noisy relief then once more looked at Kate. "Are you mad?"

“Mad?” Kate asked. What had madness to do with being a lightskirt? In confusion, she glanced at Rafe.

As their gazes met the corners of his mouth quirked upward in amusement. Although Kate couldn’t say why his smile teased a strange little laugh from her. The thought that Ami might be right filled her; insanity was all the explanation she needed for what had happened between her and this Rafe Godsol. Indeed, it seemed she was yet mad, for, right or wrong, she wouldn’t much mind kissing him again.

That thought struck Kate like a blow. She wasn’t mad. She was a betrayer! Rafe wasn’t the man she loved. She shot a glance toward the table where Warin sat not but a few yards distant.

Her relief when she saw Warin had his back to her died into a new round of guilt. It should be Warin’s kisses she craved, not this stranger’s. Lord, but Warin would never forgive her if he learned she’d given to another man what she’d steadfastly refused him. It was her need to see that no hint of her wrongdoing ever reached her love that brought Kate around to once more face Ami.

“It isn’t what you think,” Kate lied, her words all but tumbling one over the other as she wrung her cap and veil between her hands. “Yon gentleman but saved me from stumbling while I was dancing. Thinking to give me a bit of quiet and cool in which to recover, he led me to yon embrasure. I found the place too intimate for my taste and left. That was when my cap came loose, I suppose,” she finished, only to realize too late that her words were more truth than disguise.

“I mean, my cap slipped when I stumbled during the dance, of course,” she amended herself hastily and shot a glance at Rafe, hoping he’d say something to support her tale.

Instead, he gawked at her, his face the very picture of surprise. Irritation cut through Kate. Honestly, if she ever again let herself be swept away by a man’s touch, she’d first see to it that the man wasn’t a halfwit.

“Oh, but this is all my fault,” Ami cried, her face twisting in regret. “Truly Kate, I meant no harm, but once I realized you didn’t know who he was, I only thought to twit your sire a little. I never thought you’d approach him or that he’d--”. She broke off and looked at Rafe, then cleared her throat and again looked at Kate. “Or that the two of you would--”. Again she stopped, this time to draw a calming breath. “Mary save me, Kate,” she cried out, “you’re a Daubney. You must stay away from him. He’s a Godsol!”

Hearing Rafe’s family name spoken for a second time stirred deeper ripples in Kate’s memory. Godsol. Suddenly she was six again and standing in Bagots’ tomb. Her uncle, his son and two of her three brothers were there, all laid out upon catafalques, their faces waxen and still in death. They’d lost their lives in an attack upon Godsol property when the Daubneys tried to retrieve stolen stock.

In her childish memory there was no sign of her mother; Kate rarely remembered her mother, who had died just before her father had sent her to the De Fraisneys, but when she did think on her, her dam’s features were those of Lady Adele’s. Instead, it was her father’s image that was clear as ice. He knelt in the chapel, great rending sobs shaking his body as he grieved for those he’d loved and lost.

Feeling as if she were trapped in some horrible dream, Kate shifted to look at the man she’d just kissed. His mouth flattened, the gleam left his eyes. “Godsol,” she said, her voice barely loud enough for him to hear over the noise in the hall. “You’re a Godsol, one of those who killed my uncle and my brothers.”

His expression emptied until his eyes were as black as all sin. “That is who I am, Sir Ralf Godsol, youngest son of Sir John Godsol, just as you are Kate Daubney, daughter to Lord Humphrey of Bagot, the man who killed my father, and the great-granddaughter of the man who stole our heiress and our property.”

With his words the horror of what she’d done started in Kate’s toes and grew until it filled every inch of her. By the Sacred Heart! She’d kissed one of her father’s most hated enemies. Nay, she’d not only kissed him, she’d enjoyed every second of it and wanted more. This was worse than behaving as a lightskirt. This was worse than losing Warin’s love. If her father ever learned of what she’d done and felt, he’d slit her throat for certain.

“Katherine!” her sire shouted from somewhere beyond the hall door.

Fear pricked Kate like a knife. She whirled, needing to be as far from Rafe Godsol as she could possibly be. “I come, my lord,” she called, and raced away from certain death.

 

The instant he heard Lord Humphrey’s call, Rafe shifted out of his enemy’s line of sight. There was no need to borrow trouble. As it was he was grateful he couldn’t see Kate’s face as she left him. After the sweetness of their kiss, her horror when she finally recognized his name had been unnerving.

At the center of the crowded room, the musicians began another tune, this one slow and stately. Yet standing before him, Lady Amicia put her hands on her hips and glowered. The urge to laugh took Rafe by surprise, and he struggled to catch back his smile. Lady Amicia wore the same look his old nurse had used whenever she’d chided him.

Had it been any other woman Rafe would have ignored her, but Amicia was almost a friend. During the first month the sheriff’s widow had dwelled at court, Rafe harbored hopes of marriage to the young, well-to-do, pretty woman. Over the duration of his pursuit, he’d come to know her as lively, interesting, and sensible. Any expectation of wedlock was destroyed when his dearest friend Josce FitzBaldwin discovered the king found the orphaned Amicia’s dower and dowry too profitable ever to allow her remarriage. That hadn’t stopped Rafe from seeking Amicia out on more relaxed court occasions for conversation’s sake.

“Why is Lady de Fraisney lying to me?” Amicia demanded now, trading on their familiarity to pose so intimate a question.

“Is she lying?” Rafe asked. Amicia could chide, but that didn’t mean he needed to admit wrongdoing. Not that Rafe didn’t want to know as badly as Amicia why his Kate was telling tales.

After her threat to scream he’d fully expected her to shout out an accusation of assault, not shield what they’d done. That she tried to conceal it could only mean Kate was protecting someone or something. God knew it wasn’t him. Then who? More importantly, was there a way he could use Kate’s lie to aid him in taking her?

Eyes narrowed, Amicia made a rude sound. “You know very well she is. There was no conversation in yon alcove. Nay, she looks well kissed. No surprise that, since ‘twas you with her in there.”

“Do you suggest I’ve misused Lady de Fraisney when the lady herself said we did no wrong?” Rafe asked in the pretense of insult. “Why should you make such a charge? Was I ever aught but respectful toward you?”

“Of course you were respectful to me. I’m under the king’s protection,” Amicia replied sharply, even as chagrin for the affront she thought she’d done him danced across her face. Worry followed, creasing her smooth brow.

“You know as well as I that it doesn’t matter what you did, only who she is,” Amicia continued. “And don’t tell me you didn’t recognize her, for I know you better than that. Was it your plan to ruin Lord Haydon’s festivities with violence? The truce between your families would shatter if her father knew what had just occurred. Heaven help us, but her sire might well kill her for being alone with you.”

This was a reminder of how careful Rafe must be to succeed in winning himself a wife and giving his family the vengeance they craved. Rather than deter him, it only fired his resolve to keep Kate for himself. As for Amicia, she had no right to an explanation so she got none.

“Why do you complain?” Rafe asked instead. “Nothing untoward happened, and there was no violence to mar this evening. Perhaps you’re the one seeking to make trouble where there is none.”

Amicia stamped her foot in frustration. “You always turn my words back on me when you don’t want to answer my questions,” she complained. “Well, this time it matters naught what you admit. I’m the one who must take the blame for what happened here.”

She sent a quick glance in the direction Kate had gone. “Fie on me for playing so poor a trick on her and sending her your way. I truly never thought she’d tolerate as bold a man as you, upright innocent that she is.”

Rafe frowned as Amicia’s words recalled the passive way Kate had accepted his kiss. “How can you claim innocence for her when she’s been a wife?”

“Poor thing,” Amicia said, her quiet words only audible because in that instant the music fell away into the lonely trill of the pipe. “Married she was, but there are those here who say her childish husband spurned her.”

Rafe’s surprise was sharp enough to tease him into throwing a quick glance at Kate. She and her father now stood near the hall door. Lord Bagot had his back to his enemy’s son. Rafe could see Kate’s face just beyond her sire’s shoulder. With her cap yet held in her hands, the torchlight found deep red highlights in her hair. The light’s golden glow outlined the gentle curves of her profile. Could she truly be the innocent Amicia claimed?

“Turn your eyes away, sir knight,” Amicia snapped, her voice hard. “I read your face well enough to see where your thoughts drift. She’s not for you, and you know it. Worse, your attention will only lead to tragedy.”

“What harm can there be in looking?” Rafe started to protest, only to be interrupted by Josce FitzBaldwin.

“Why Rafe, here you are at last,” Josce called from a few feet distant. “I’ve been looking all over Haydon for you.”

Rafe glanced at Josce then snorted. Josce was lying; it wasn’t him his friend sought. Rafe’s foster-brother’s gaze was fixed on Amicia. Amicia watched the tall, fair-haired knight no less intently in return.

“Now that you’ve found me, what is it you want?” Rafe asked, glancing from one to the other. Josce found Amicia endlessly interesting, mostly because he knew Amicia had formed an affection for him. He wasn’t one to refuse a woman’s attention, even if he didn’t return that affection.

If there had been anything Rafe could have done to win Amicia for Josce, even if it meant turning his own back on her wealth, he’d have done it, such was his love for his friend. More than any other men at court, he and Josce were irrevocably bound to each other. Between Rafe’s poverty and Josce’s bastardy, the two of them were the least among men of their rank. Only on the tilting field, mounted on their warhorses with lances in hand, did they escape that lowly estate. He and Josce were accorded the most powerful jousters among the king’s men, some said in all England, now that the earl of Pembroke was an old man.

Josce’s gaze never shifted from Amicia. He smiled. Lady Amicia blushed prettily. “Mary, but I seem to have forgotten, Rafe,” Josce said.

Rafe loosed a quiet laugh. “Is that so?”

His words stirred Amicia into finally offering the newcomer the appropriate quick bob. "Good even to you, Sir Josce. It’s a fine wedding your lord father stages for your lady sister." Her voice was soft now, all sign of shrewishness gone.

“Indeed, it is,” Josce said, catching the widow’s hand to bow low over it. “I shall convey your compliments to Lady Haydon.”

Rafe grinned at such courtly posturing. As Josce straightened, he shifted to stand beside the widow. She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and once more gazed up at him, fair moonstruck. It was a triumphant grin Josce sent Rafe’s way before he again looked at the sheriff’s widow.

“My lady, since it seems my friend has failed to ask you, I won’t be shy. Will you share this dance with me?”

Lady Amicia’s smile could have melted wax. “It will be my pleasure.” She caught herself to throw a chiding glance in Rafe’s direction. “But I won’t go until you tell yon Godsol I’ll be watching to see he behaves himself over the next days.”

Rafe’s brows lifted. There was no misunderstanding the warning. Amicia thought he meant to seduce Kate and would not stand for her new friend’s misuse. There’d be no ally for him here, not that he expected one.

Josce bent a pitying look in Rafe’s direction. “My lady, I fear any scold you send in his direction is wasted effort. Years I’ve lectured our Rafe over his behavior, all to no avail.”

That made Rafe laugh out loud. “The blind leading the blind, my friend,” he said.

Josce’s haughty sniff at the jab was all pretense. “Come, my lady, we’re already late joining the dance.”

“Then we’ll just have to dance a second time to make up for what we’ve missed,” the widow said, leaning coyly against her escort’s arm as he led her away from Rafe.

With their departure, Rafe’s attention returned to Kate where she stood with her sire near the door. Innocent, Amicia called her, and innocent she was. Excitement woke deep in him. That Kate was unschooled in the ways of love he no longer doubted. The proof was in the guileless way she’d shifted her body against his and the fact that she’d offered no caresses of her own.

Rafe grinned. Unschooled aye, but not unwilling, not with so much passion in her kiss. By God, her maidenhead aside, it would be he, Rafe Godsol, and no other man, who made Kate Daubney a woman.

As his determination to own her grew Rafe’s gaze shifted to the man beside her, Sir William of Ramswood. It didn’t take a scholar to recognize that the shire’s newest widower was ogling the lift of Kate’s breasts beneath her silken gowns while pretending to listen to her. Rafe sneered. If that paunchy wreck was the best Bagot could do for his daughter, Kate would likely leap to join a Godsol in secret marriage, enemy or no.

“Rafe!” The sound of his shouted name echoed up into the hall’s rafters. Rafe turned to find Sir Simon de Kenifer motioning to him from the opposite side of the room.

“Come join us,” Simon called. “We’ve emptied our own purses dicing and would now like a chance at yours.”

Rafe shot a final glance at Kate. Now that she knew who he was it wasn’t likely he’d have another chance to approach her this evening. Not that it was necessary; nay, he’d done enough for one night, and the morrow offered plenty of opportunity. As tradition demanded, the newlyweds would cling close to their chamber for all of the next day. To honor them the wedding guests would likewise remain close to Haydon. Baldwin of Haydon planned a short hawking excursion into the nearby woods with a picnic and dancing to follow.

Again Rafe smiled. Summer foliage was thick. The possibility woke of luring Kate far enough away from the others to kiss her once more, if not steal her outright.

Content, he made his way to where the remainder of his companions stood. “Dicing already?” he asked as he came to a halt beside them. “I thought you meant to wait a day or two before you lost your riches.”

“We’ve no choice,” Simon said, shooting him a sidelong glance. “There’s nothing else for us to do now that so many here know we serve the king. A good half of Lord Haydon’s guests shun us, so busy are they plotting rebellion against our monarch. The other half only want to convince us they’re yet loyal liege men, so we might carry the tale of their faithfulness to our royal master. Lord, but we grew so tired of listening to them we were almost sorry to have begged leave so we could return from France for this event.”

Beneath the fringe of Simon’s light brown hair, sly amusement gleamed in the young knight’s pale eyes. A grin pricked at the corners of his mobile mouth. “That left us naught to do but wager over what you’re watching from the shadows.” He paused, his smile quivering a little. “So, just what were you watching?”

“What am I ever watching?” Rafe asked with a shrug, knowing full well past behavior would lead his friends to assume he once more planned a seduction. Not even they would think him bold enough to plot the theft of the Daubney heiress.

His companions hooted. “What, indeed, save some rich man’s wife?” laughed dark Hugh d’Aincourt from beside Simon, pouncing upon the bait left for him. It was whilst the king battled his Welsh son-by-marriage a few years back that Hugh had won the thick scar across his cheek. Rather than detract from his appearance, it lent Hugh’s otherwise dour and harsh face a rakish air.

Alan FitzOsbert gave a disgusted shake of his head. “You’ll die a castrated man, my friend.” Although his fair hair and gray eyes made Alan the darling of those ladies at court addicted to tales of courtly love, he was so cautious in his behavior that it’d earned him the pet name Priest from his companions. Alan wanted desperately to become a knight Templar, a celibate warrior. Unfortunately, he was his father’s only son and was expected to breed up heirs for the family line.

“Rafe will never be castrated, Priest, because he’ll never be caught,” Stephen de St. Valery retorted, his green eyes merry. He rattled the die in his cupped hands. With his easy nature and ever open purse, Stephen could always be counted on for a drink, a game or a song. Now, the youngest son of an earl offered his friends a broad grin. “Being chased by so many husbands has made our Rafe quick enough to outrun Death, if need be.”

Stephen’s jest teased Rafe into shooting a final glance over his shoulder. It wasn’t Kate he looked for this time, but her sire. If Death waited for him these next days, he’d surely wear the guise of Lord Humphrey of Bagot. Both father and daughter were gone, no doubt retired for the night.

Rafe looked back at his friends, only to have excitement over the morrow once more tug at his heart. It was enough to make him reckless. Opening his purse, he took out a couple of his precious pence to show them to his friends.

“What say you, Stephen?” he demanded. “Do you intend to toss those bones or only rattle them in your hands all night?”