The Protector (17 page)

A
NNA STIRRED BEFORE DAWN
. It was bitter outside the cozy huddle of blankets and furs.

In her waking stupor she gradually became aware of the weight and warmth behind her. She felt the arm wrapped around her from the back, its hand resting peacefully on her bound breast. A lower pressure claimed her attention. Morvan in his sleep had tangled his right leg amidst hers so that she practically sat on his thigh. The warmth of his closeness swept over her lazy senses and she closed her eyes to savor the surprising comfort it gave her.

She couldn't disentangle herself without waking him. She tried to go back to sleep, and when that failed she opened her eyes to await the dawn. At last, the first light began to seep through the trees.

Suddenly his hand and leg pulled away. With a quick
movement, he flipped her. She found herself on her back, looking up into blazing black eyes.

“You are finally awake,” she said, beginning to sit.

He pushed her down and moved his body over hers, resting on his forearms with his face mere inches from her own. His thick hair was mussed from sleep and she could read every plane of his handsome face by the light of the embers and early dawn: the firm line of his jaw, the slight hollows of his cheeks, the straight feathering of his brow. His expression looked serious and thoughtful. The fur cloak around his shoulders spread out to cover them both.

“I have been awake awhile.” Two of his fingers lifted a strand of her curls to tease his severe mouth. “Imagine my surprise to find that I had embraced you during the night, and that you on wakening had not pushed me away.”

Heat began to flush her limbs. “I thought that you were sleeping and didn't want to wake you,” she said, making a vain effort to push him away now.

“Even with my hand on your breast and my thigh between yours? You are most considerate.” He brushed her mouth with his. “You have been curious about these things of late, Anna. Just how curious are you?”

“You moved yourself here. Do not blame me now for an accident of the night.”

“It was cold and you were freezing. Even the soldiers sleep thus at the other fire.” He spoke lowly into her ear as his teeth found her lobe. His breath sent shivers through her. She could not hide her reaction. He looked into her eyes and burned away her objections with the flame of his gaze.

The weight of his chest pinned her and his forearms immobilized her. He pulled open her cloak at the neck
and lowered his head, finding the pulse with his mouth. He gently bit his way up the side of her neck. Wonderful chills spiraled down her body, creating a throbbing beat low in her belly. His mouth reached hers and he kissed her deeply as he held her head with his hands, his tongue caressing her insistently until a breathless moan escaped her.

“You don't protest. It occurs to me that you never have. It is left to me to act the saint for your saintly sake, but I am not made of stone.”

She
should
protest—her mind knew it. But the voice of reason had become a mere whisper, drowned out by triumphant pleasure. The part of her that wanted this, that coiled with tense anticipation, was grateful for her weakness.

He kissed her again, slow and hard, and she accepted it and responded in kind. He shifted off her. Through the fog of pleasure she felt his hand push aside the disheveled layers of her cloak and loosen the ties down the front of her surcotte. He unbuckled her belt and slid his hand down her leg to find the tunic's hem.

“What are you doing?” She lifted her head and shoulders in surprise even as her arm, free now, reached up to encircle his shoulder.

“Hush.” He laid her down again. He seductively kissed her cheek, her temple, her throat while his hand worked its way through the layers of clothes that separated them. “Do not worry. I would not take a virgin on a cold winter ground with five others just thirty paces away.”

His hand pushed up her tunic and shirt until it found the bare skin of her stomach. He caressed her with rough fingers, and his eyes closed with his own reaction. When they reopened she saw a look which would have made her very worried had she not been on a cold winter
ground with five others nearby. But the convulsive shocks of pleasure drove any fear from her mind.

He stroked the silk scarf that bound her breasts. “You make a man work hard.” His hand closed on her through the silk. A small sound came from her throat. He traced around and found the tie under her arm. The silk layers loosened and he pushed them away until her breasts were free.

He looked down while he gently stroked around their swells, the thrilling pleasure peaking sharply whenever his hand grazed her nipples. He began playing carefully with those hard points, deliberately summoning helpless sighs from her. Anxious need claimed her. Her body moved without her consent and arched toward his hand.

He lowered his head. She watched wide-eyed as his tongue and lips began to arouse her the way his fingers had. Sharp excitement shot through her again and again. His tongue whisked and grazed her before his mouth took her breast in a more demanding way.

Thundering desire pounded in her. She grabbed at his shoulders in a vain effort to release the mounting madness. A living hollow ached inside her, desperate to be filled. He thrust his knee between her legs, pressing upward, and that only made it worse, more concentrated, a physical yearning that was both torture and delicious pleasure. His kisses and caresses demanded that she crave more, until that primitive hunger was all that mattered.

A moan escaped her and he swallowed the sound in his mouth. His hands abruptly left her. He wrapped his arms around her, his face smothered in her neck and hair. Her body screamed with resentment at the withdrawal of pleasure, but he calmed her with soothing kisses as he pulled her clothes down around her body.

They lay in each other's arms while little arrows of
heat and desire kept piercing her, defeating her attempts to be grateful he had shown restraint. Slowly she became aware of the breaking day around them, and the cold on her face, and the noises from the other camp. The last startled her. She raised her head to glance at the bushes.

He must have heard. That was why he had stopped.

“They are just rising,” he reassured her.

“We must rise too,” she said reluctantly, not anxious to leave the warmth of his arms. She was embarrassed now, and afraid to look at him.

He stood and helped her up, then draped the long cloak around her. “Go into the trees and right yourself.”

A cold drizzle started as the storm finally made its way inland. Huddled under cloaks and oiled canvas capes, they plodded along roads made treacherous by mud and water.

Morvan found himself in a black mood. The lack of fulfillment had provoked a devilish irritation. It was made worse by the presence on the horse beside him of the woman he wanted.

He had no doubt that she would have yielded this morning. He tried not to think about it, but she was right there, reacting to his mood with her damned calm reserve. When he looked at her he saw her beneath him, eyes closed and face flushed with passion, moving herself into his caress, gasping in surprise, joining him in the wondrous pleasure. He knew that the memories were not just with him, but with her also, hanging silently between them, calling for attention. And completion.

At midday they found protection beneath some trees to rest the horses and take some food. Gregory sought him out.

“We can't camp tonight. It will still be raining, and could turn to snow. We should find some shelter.”

“Windsor will be crowded if the court is there. We will stop at Reading, just to the west. I know the family at a manor house nearby and they will take the horses and the men. It will only be a barn, but it will be dry.”

“And the lady?”

“I will take her into Reading and find her an inn.” He looked up and saw Gregory's wary expression. So, his friend had guessed the reason for his mood. “Then I will return and join you.”

As the journey continued Anna once again rode alone beside a big, dark cloud of a man.

Except for one warm smile when she'd emerged from the trees this morning, Morvan had been full of nothing but brooding silence. Something dangerous and predatory emanated from him. That she was the source of his mood was all too clear from the looks he gave her. She felt like a sparrow being eyed by a falcon, and she didn't like it.

“You are angry,” she said.

“I am not,” he replied, but his brittle tone said that he was. “I merely find myself wondering why a woman bound for the convent would tempt a man. I wonder what you want of me.”

“Do not be ridiculous. I wouldn't know how to tempt a man.”

“You managed well enough this morning for one so innocent. There are limits to what can be expected of me, no matter what my resolve and honor.”

He was blaming
her
.

“I did not embrace you. I did not kiss
you
and push
you
down on the ground.”

“Nor did you stop me, or make the smallest protest. Do you understand that you would not still be a maid if the others had not woken?”

Did she understand that? Had she believed him when he said that wouldn't happen? She couldn't remember caring too much about it. “I could not stop you.”

Her response only darkened his expression. “Do you leave such decisions to the man? If so, the end will always be the same. You have been receiving the wrong education from Catherine. It is just as well that you go to the abbey, or you will end up little better than Lady Martha.”

“A man's logic, surely. Seduce a woman and then call her the whore. I thank you for the lesson. Catherine neglected to tell me about the shame men want women to feel.” She spit the words at him, then turned her head away.

Silence fell between them. Just the sounds of the wind and their horses' hooves intruded.

“Anna, I did not—”

“Do not speak to me.”
She kicked her horse and galloped away from the humiliation he had forced on her.

The light was waning when they found the small manor house outside Reading. Morvan knew the knight who lived there and went in to speak with him. Word came for them to enter the barn and make themselves comfortable.

The evening brought colder weather. Morvan sought her out in the barn when he returned from his conversation with the knight and insisted they leave for Reading at once. By the time they found the small inn her anger had grown and she was impatient to get rid of him. She waited on her horse while he inquired about a room.

“The weather has filled them, but since you are a lady the owner will open an extra chamber that they have on the top floor,” he said. “Come in and warm yourself. They have to move a bed, and it will take some time.”

He brought her into the public room and they sat at a table near the hearth. She studied the people sitting at the other benches while she drank spiced wine and ate some food. She ignored Morvan, whom she felt looking at her the whole time.

Finally the innkeeper's wife led the way up two flights of stairs to a narrow passage under the roof of the building. There was only one chamber there, and from the objects stacked outside it appeared that they normally used it for storage. It was quite small, with one shuttered window on the wall across from the door, but it had a hearth. A big bed took up almost all of the space. She guessed that it was the innkeeper's own and that he and his wife would sleep on straw tonight.

The woman left them, and Morvan made to follow her out.

“Do not leave this chamber, Anna,” he said from the threshold. “This inn is sometimes visited at night by young men from Windsor. They gamble and drink in the public room. I will come for you in the morning. Open the door to no one.”

When he left, she took a deep breath and exhaled her fury. He kept treating her like a stupid child, and that would have to stop tomorrow. A lot of good his protection afforded her, considering that the only danger she had faced thus far on this journey had come from him.

A bucket of water warmed near the hearth and she stripped off her clothes, laying them on a stool by the fire to dry. She poured some of the water into a crockery bowl atop a small table at the foot of the bed and washed
the road off herself. She usually slept naked, but would have been uncomfortable doing so here. She rummaged through a bag Morvan had carried up, pulling out one of her father's shirts and an old pair of her brother's hose.

She rolled the tattered legs of the hose up over her knees. The shirt came down to her thighs and billowed loosely. The garments made her look ridiculous, but they would be warm.

She blew out the one candle and climbed into the bed. The sheets were old but clean, and she snuggled down into their cool scent. It was too early to sleep, but at least she was dry and alone with her thoughts, and not in the rain beside a brooding man with his insults and threatening presence.

Morvan returned to the public room to dry some more before heading into the cold. A group of men from Windsor arrived. He knew two of them and was drawn into a conversation about his travels. It was midnight before he forced himself to leave Reading and the woman in the chamber upstairs.

His black mood had turned into one of regret when he saw how she had taken his thoughtless words to heart. It had been churlish of him to throw his frustration at her in that way, to blame her when she was blameless. Their friendship and his protection gave her every reason to trust him. But probably no one, he mused bitterly, had ever told her that no man could really be trusted in these matters.

A fine icy rain had begun to fall. He turned the horse toward the town gate, trying not to think of Anna, trying not to picture her in that upper chamber now. They would be in London soon, and at his sister's house. He
would still see her while she awaited her audience with the King, but not very often, since he would find lodging elsewhere. He doubted that he would be alone with her again. A poignant sense of loss spread through him.

The fault this morning had been all his, but he could not really regret it. There was a purity and freedom in her passion that kept disarming his resolve. Most women used their responses as part of a larger game, but she simply gave without thought and took on the same basis. Her spirit had been with him as well as her body, one wrapping his shoulders and the other his soul. In her inexperience she'd known not where to put her hands, but her heart had been in the right place, as frank and open as that level gaze with which she looked at him. Had he played this game so long that he no longer recognized a girl who didn't even know the rules?