Once a Knight

  Then Avina from the village said, “She’s going t’ wash him wi’ the water from the sky.”

  Alisoun set her teeth in annoyance, but Sir Walter said, “Of course it’s from the sky, you slop-brain. Where else would it be from?”

  “That’s rainwater.” Fenchel made the distinction precisely. “Not from the well, an’ not from the stream. It’ll heal him more quickly because their mating called it from the sky.”

  David’s eyes popped open. “What are they talking about?”

  He hadn’t heard that absurd tale, and Alisoun didn’t want him to. She looked to Sir Walter in appeal.

  In a loud and companionable voice, Sir Walter said, “Have you noticed, Ivo, how there is none of the normal jesting with my lady and Sir David that accompanies a newly formed union?”

  In his rough way, he was trying to help her by changing the subject, but David scowled. Everyone in the castle and the village had been stricken with delicacy. No one mentioned David’s nightly visits to her solar, because David refused to allow anyone to bandy her name about. He both demolished her reputation and protected it.

  “I think it’s because of that frown.” Sir Walter pointed out easily, as if he expected David to be displeased. At the same time, he inched away. “When Sir David wishes, he can look ferocious, like a dangerous beast loose in our midst.”

  Sir Walter wasn’t making things better. He was making them worse. Still he bumbled on. “We’re throwing our lady to him as tribute, fearing to stand in his way.”

  David bunched his fists. “Sew your yap shut,” he ordered.

  Fenchel didn’t seem to hear David. Instead he gently corrected Sir Walter. “It’s that together, they make the rains come. M’lady yields t’ him because she must, t’ help her people.”

  With a compelling stare at Alisoun, David inquired, “You yield to me because you must? What nonsense is this?”

  It was nonsense, of course. He’d made her a vow when he’d left her sitting on the table, almost naked and almost defenseless. He’d sworn to come to her bed and make her welcome him.

  Every night since, he’d kept his word without an invitation, without caring for her mood or her desires. But always, somehow, he made her mood and desires his. She could have told herself she yielded because she had to, but she didn’t lie. She yielded because he excited her, because what he taught her she could never learn from another man. Sometimes the hours drifted, one into the other, while he caressed her, kissed her, gifted her with pleasure. Other times he treated her as if he were a conqueror taking her as his right. Always, she fell asleep satisfied, knowing herself treasured above all women.

  “Come, come, old man,” Sir Walter said in a jocular tone. “Lady Alisoun hardly considers taking Sir David to her bed a sacrifice. From the sounds issuing from the room, I’d say it was quite the opposite.”

  Alisoun winced, and David leaped to his feet. Striding toward Sir Walter, he said, “You don’t talk about my lady Alisoun in such a familiar manner. She’s not yours. She’ll never be yours. And I’ll kill if you if you ever disparage her again.”

  “David!” Alisoun grabbed his arm, but he shook her off.

  Sir Walter backed away from David, waving his hands. “Nay. I meant no harm! I only tried to distract you from that which my lady didn’t wish you to know.”

  With a growl of animal rage, David grabbed Sir Walter by the chest, then pushed him backward into a puddle.

  “Into th’ sky water,” Avina commented with approval.

  Sir Walter came off the ground in a flurry, ready to attack David. Then he hesitated. David could beat him. He knew it, David knew it, and he had no wish to prove it to everyone in George’s Cross. Yet David’s blow had stripped him of prestige and authority. Taking one step back, he spat at David’s feet, then stalked away.

  This wasn’t what Alisoun had intended. Lately, nothing made sense. Not Sir Walter and his bumbling attempts to ingratiate himself. Not David, angry that she dared try to keep any possible child from him. Angry about something else, too, and not just that she wouldn’t marry him. Although she couldn’t comprehend the workings of his mind, she knew that without a doubt.

  David looked at her with his blazing eyes and dared her to complain.

  She shuddered beneath the impact of his gaze.

  Sometimes she imagined she was a gemstone swept along by a relentless river, formed and shaped by the current. It tumbled her along into ever deeper waters, and sometimes she feared to drown. Other times…well, other times she welcomed the turbulence.

  She didn’t understand it. During the day, her mind controlled her actions. But at night, it was as if another being ruled. A being with urges blatantly opposed to the Alisoun she thought she was. She couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t the same being David called forth when he laughed at authority. Being with David exposed a whole new part of herself, and she had to wonder—and worry—what else he would reveal.

  Without a word, she handed him the rag and walked away.

  15

  David watched Alisoun leave and didn’t know whether to worry or shout for joy. Over and over again, he would think she had grown used to him. Then she would skitter away like a wild bird, and he realized he was no closer to understanding her than before. She was a constant enigma, but lately he’d begun to suspect that God and all the saints were on his side, and he’d win this battle as he had any other—with a combination of skill, intelligence, and luck.

  Standing, he leaned over the bucket and washed until Eudo told him he’d eliminated the worst of his grime. Then, taking the wet rag, he followed Alisoun’s trail. He followed her easily. Everyone he encountered indicated where she’d gone. Only after he left the castle walls did he have to use his tracking skills, searching for the bent grasses into the woods, then seeking the leaves and branches that showed the signs of her passing. He caught sight of her as she broke into the woodland meadow, and he watched from the shadows as she spread her arms wide to the sunshine. Then she whirled in circles like some Crusader’s heathen bride. He crept closer, fascinated by the open elation she displayed, and when she dropped to the ground, he waited in suspense to see what else she would do.

  She did nothing, only covering her eyes with both hands as if worry had overcome her or she’d been drained by the burst of emotion.

  She was behaving uncharacteristically, he thought, as he walked to her side. But that was to be expected of a woman in her condition.

  She didn’t move. It seemed to him she was thinking too hard to notice anything outside of herself, but when he moved to block the sun from her face she came off the ground with her fist up.

  “Whoa!” He waved the white rag above his head in mock surrender. “Don’t hurt me, my lady. I’m a peaceful man.”

  She let out her breath in a half-laugh and dropped her fist. “Of course you are.” She sounded as if she didn’t believe it, and she sank back to the ground. “It’s those who aren’t so peaceful who concern me.” Plucking the grass, she asked, “Why did you follow me?”

  The truth would not do, at least not yet, so he offered the rag. “I need my face washed.”

  She looked at the rag, then at his face. “Do you?”

  “According to you, my lady, I always need my face washed. Here.” He shoved the rag into her hand. “Take it.”

  She held it gingerly as if she didn’t want to touch it, or him, then spread it over her hand and sat up on her heels. He stretched out on the ground and wiggled around until his head rested in her lap, then squinted up at her. “I like this.”

  “You would.”

  She stroked the rag over the oozing scrapes and David flinched. “Hey! Be gentle!”

  “Being gentle won’t get the dirt out of these scrapes.” With unusual enthusiasm, she scrubbed at the sore place on his forehead. “Hugh showed quite a bit of innovation with his use of the ground as a weapon.”

  “Everything he knows he learned from me,” David mumbled as she pressed the rag against his
split lip.

  “You’ve worked miracles,” she said.

  “Enough miracles to justify another month’s wages?”

  The rag, and her hand beneath it, smacked against his already sore nose, and when he yelped, she apologized in her careful, measured tones. If he hadn’t been in pain, he would have laughed—who would have thought, two months ago, that the correct Lady Alisoun would descend to such a petty revenge?

  But she said, “You’ll be paid on the day of the accounting, no sooner.”

  “I’m glad.” Sitting up, he took the rag away from her and flung it away. “I want to keep protecting you from whatever makes you bring up your fist when you think you’re alone.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “Don’t you want to tell me about it yet?” he coaxed.

  She shook her head.

  Disappointment made his voice sharp. “Isn’t it my duty to see that you are safe at all times? I think that a walk such as you’ve just taken could scarcely be considered prudent.”

  “Even foolish.” She glanced around the open meadow. “Still, he hides himself. I almost wish he would return so we could end this.”

  Her intensity surprised David. He’d chided her, true, but he’d almost forgotten why he beat his body into submission day after day. The reward he received every night pushed danger far from his thoughts. Now he, too, glanced around the meadow. They sat in the open, exposed to any predator’s gaze, and a frisson of warning went up his spine. “Mayhap we should sit in the shade of a tree.”

  “Mayhap we should go back.”

  They should, of course, but he wanted to talk to her, and when they returned to the castle she’d be inundated with duties and he’d need to go make his peace with Sir Walter. “A few more minutes alone,” he begged. “I have a question to ask you.”

  Warily, she agreed. He helped her up and then put his arm around her waist. He liked the easy intimacy of that, the knowledge that he could have her out here and she would yield. It had been a significant victory for him that one morning on the table, and he’d often wondered why his burst of fury and impatience had worked when all his careful preparation the previous night had failed. He’d been too angry and disappointed to think about it at first, and that night he’d shouldered his way into her bedroom and let his emotions drive them. Later, he’d experimented, trying to see what evoked her passion, and he’d discovered she sought, recognized, and responded only to genuine ardor.

  If he tried to seduce her, she resisted him with all her fiber. She sought his genuine affection, and she was an expert at detecting the sincerity of others’ feelings. What excited her most were the times he concentrated on the two of them to the exclusion of all else. Luckily for him, that proved easy, for when he allowed desire to sweep through him, her response rewarded him beyond his wildest dreams. She acted like a woman in love, and he liked her that way.

  Choosing a place in the shade where she could rest her back against a tree, he swept her a bow and said, “Sit here.”

  Solemnly, she obeyed him, arranging her skirts carefully and tucking her feet beneath her. She sat with her spine straight and her face composed. Without a word spoken, he understood. She was the lady; he was the mercenary. She would speak to him, but she took care that he saw no glimpse of skin or any part which might excite him, for today she wanted to forget their intimacies of the night before.

  Too bad he couldn’t allow her such privacy.

  “Why did you run away back there?”

  She hesitated, and he could see her wanting to pretend she didn’t remember how abruptly she had left. But unlike most people he’d ever met, she faced trouble when it came.

  “Everything we’ve done previously, we’ve done in the privacy of our chambers, and although everyone knew what was occurring, they hadn’t actually seen.”

  “Except for the sheet,” he reminded her.

  “Aye. Except for that.” Her nostrils flared with disapproval, just as they always did when he reminded her of the sheet. “But when I wished to do something as simple as tending your hurt, my people watched as if it were an event, an indication of…something.”

  “Like affection?”

  He’d struck a nerve somehow, for she sat up on her heels and her hands twisted in her lap. “I have affection for you! I couldn’t have let you come to my bed if I did not. Just because I don’t show every passing emotion, it doesn’t mean I’m cold or unfeeling. It simply means I’ve learned that women are better obeyed when they restrain their emotions.”

  Startled by her vehemence, he agreed.

  She went on. “From the moment of my birth, my parents explained to me the difficulties I would face as an heiress with no close male kin. My godparents helped me realize my position and how others would try to take advantage of it. All of them trained me in appropriate behavior, and tempered me by maintaining a proper distance. Just because I keep to myself, it does not mean I have no feelings.”

  “I know that.” He kept his voice low, half-afraid she would flee again when she realized what she’d revealed. “I’ve always known there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

  She collapsed back onto the ground. “Aye. Like wealth.”

  Her cold suggestion left him shocked and indignant until he remembered why he’d courted her in the first place. He did want her money, her land, her influence. He needed it, all of it, but that wasn’t the only reason he courted her now, and he wanted to tell her in the eloquent language of the troubadours. Instead he gulped and said, “There’s more than that.”

  “More. Aye, more. More time, mostly.”

  “Time?”

  “Time between my birth and now. I’m old.”

  He laughed. He shouldn’t have, but compared to him, she was a child, an innocent babe inexperienced with anguish or struggle.

  Then he glanced at her and saw the way her lips tightened and the glare she bent on him. Hastily, he said, “I beg your pardon, my lady. Your experience in diplomacy and management is far beyond the reach of mine, yet your beauty has never been touched by frost.” His flattery failed to mollify her, and he sighed. “My lady—Alisoun—have you thought that lately, in the last fortnight, you have occasionally lost your serenity on more than one occasion?”

  Incredulous, she said, “That’s your fault! You’ll take nothing less than my complete participation.”

  “Aye, in bed.” He took her hand and petted it. “Have I told you how happy you make me in bed?”

  She stiffened yet further. “You’ve mentioned it, although I scarcely believe we should have such a discussion outside in the sunlight.”

  Leaning forward, he whispered, “Do I make you happy in bed?” She glanced around as if expecting the stern monitors of her behavior to materialize and chide her, and he raised his voice to recapture her attention. “Do I make you happy in—”

  “Aye.” She clamped her teeth together hard, as if that one-word admission pained her.

  He kissed her hand, then put it back in her lap. His hands lingered, rubbing her thighs through the material of her skirt. The friction warmed her even as she batted ineffectually at him, and she relaxed a little. He said, “I’ve observed that you occasionally laugh out loud.”

  “Not frequently.”

  “Not frequently,” he agreed. “But it’s startling. Pleasant, but startling.”

  “I won’t do it anymore.”

  “Don’t stop. It’s made everyone quite cheerful. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Maybe.” She begrudged him even so small an acknowledgment.

  “I’ve seen you blinking tears from your eyes, too.”

  She pushed back so quickly her head hit the tree trunk, but she didn’t seem to notice the pain. He heard panic when she demanded, “When?”

  “The musicians made you cry last night with their ballad about the brothers who were rival pirates and sank each other’s ships.”

  “I have no sympathy for pirates.”

  “That’s why it surprised me wh
en you wept.”

  Tears filled her eyes now—not that she would admit it—and he ached for her. She was experiencing a full range of emotions for the first time, and she was as susceptible to the pangs as any adolescent. But he couldn’t coddle her. Not now. It was far too late for that. She had to face this sensibly, like the lady Alisoun, and slowly she would grow into this other, newer role. “I’ve also noted that you observe Hazel when she’s close to you.”

  “Hazel?”

  “The baby. Hazel. You offer to hold her, too.” She didn’t say anything, and he probed. “Is there any reason why she interests you now?”

  “Babies are just interesting.”

  “Aye, I always thought so.” Since the first time he’d held his daughter in his arms. “Your emotions are easily touched, babies fascinate you…Do you have something you want to tell me?”

  “Why?” She was beginning to sound defensive.

  This was proving every bit as difficult as he had feared. “Because you haven’t had your monthly flux in the time we’ve been together.”

  She just stared at him as if he were speaking some foreign language.

  “I just thought that since you’re laughing and crying easily, and I’ve noticed when I touch you here—” he caressed one breast slowly, trying to calm her, “—you’re sensitive, and you haven’t had—”

  “Are you trying to suggest I am with child?”

  She understood! He almost wiped his brow in relief. “That had occurred to me. Do you think that you might be?”

  “How should I know? I’ve never been concerned with such trivial matters.” She must have realized how odd that sounded, for she explained, “As lady, my task has never been to deal with the early signs of conception. My task has been to assist in delivering the babes into the world while the man responsible drinks himself into oblivion.”

  “I wondered if that might not be the case,” he answered mildly.

  Ignoring him, she swept on. “And how do you know so much about a woman’s body, anyway?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “Oh, I suppose you have a hundred bastards loitering around your estate. Well, if you know so much about it, why didn’t you just say, ‘My lady, you’re with child,’ and be done with it?”