Captured by the Warrior (16 page)

‘What’s there to say?’ His face was devoid of expression, closed. ‘What I did…it was unforgivable.’

She smiled crookedly. ‘I forgive you.’

He jerked roughly on a thick leather strap, securing the saddle. ‘You need to forget it. I took advantage of you. For that I am sorry.’

Her wide, candid blue eyes followed his succinct, practised movements, his strong fingers fastening the buckle beneath the horse’s belly. ‘I was fully aware of what was about to happen. You gave me a chance to stop it.’

His fingers stilled, his bleak, glittering scrutiny shredding her flimsy confidence. ‘Then why didn’t you?’ he ground out. ‘Christ, woman, why didn’t you stop me?’

Beneath the heavy folds of the tunic bunched before her, her fingers curled against his anger. Everything was wrong; she had done something wrong. How could she tell him how she felt towards him, that every time she looked his way, or heard his voice, or felt the brush of his hand, her heart filled with such a sense of joy, of belonging, that she felt it would burst with happiness? Edmund’s utter betrayal only intensified her feelings. How could she tell him, when his rejection of her was all too obvious in his behaviour?

‘I’m not sure.’ She threw him a feeble smile, picking furiously at an errant thread, trying to hide her shame.

‘Well, let’s hope you don’t regret it,’ he threw back roughly.

Alice paled. ‘Don’t be like this,’ she whispered. Her plea wavered, fragile in the shimmering air.

‘I suppose you’ve already conjured up some rosy image of us growing old together, with four or five snotty-nosed children running around us, a comfortable castle, table groaning with food—’

‘Stop it!’ Alice paced over to him, fury lacing her voice. ‘How can you be like this? How dare you defile something that was so…?’ Her voice trailed to nothing. Something so beautiful, she had been about to say.

‘Because this is what I’m really like, Alice. A black-hearted soul who will never change.’

‘Nay!’ She thumped the cote-hardie into his chest. ‘Nay, you’re not like that! You would never have come back for me if you were! People can change. You can change.’

‘Alice, you see the best in everybody,’ Bastien said wearily, his voice softening a little. ‘You probably thought Felpersham was a kind-hearted elderly man, until he revealed his true character.’

‘Nay, I…’ But Bastien held his hand up, stopping her speech, setting his leonine head at an angle. In the distance, a faint sound: the baying of dogs. His eyes narrowed, dragon-green gimlets.

‘They’re on to us.’ Bastien scowled. ‘Come on, we need to move.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Maybe you should just leave me here. It would certainly save you from all the effort of being nasty to me.’

He grimaced at her. ‘Don’t be silly. I went through all that trouble of rescuing you, I’m not about to give
you up now.’ Her heart surged with hope at his words, although she was fully aware of his intended meaning.

Bastien sprung into the saddle, kicked his foot free of the stirrup. ‘Mount up before me,’ he ordered her briskly. The horse, sensing his master’s tension, pawed the ground, eager to move.

Alice stuck her toe into the high metal stirrup, as Bastien leaned down to bring her up before him. The two sides of the back of her gown gaped open, the tattered laces dangling forlornly.

‘Oh!’ she muttered in surprise, clutching at the sagging front of her bodice, as she swung neatly in front of Bastien. ‘My dress…!’

Bastien glowered. The ruined garment tormented him; he remembered the softness of her skin against his fingers, the swift rasp of his knife as he had impatiently sliced through the laces. He dug his heels into his horse’s flank, spurring the animal into a fast trot.

‘We’ll sort it out later,’ he ground out.

Through the open, dipping sides of her gown, Bastien’s iron-hard chest bounced against her rigid spine, tantalising, warm. Alice jerked forwards abruptly with each jolting contact. Even as her body still thrummed with the after-effects of their love-making, still yearned for his touch, she endeavoured to hold her slim frame away from him. Her muscles, her nerves, strained with the effort, making them sore, frayed. They had galloped steadily over several miles, splashing through fast-flowing streams to confuse the dogs, but now, as the track narrowed through the trees, Bastien adjusted his grip on the reins, slowing the horse to a walk.

Alice studied his tanned, sinewy fingers looped
around the worn leather of the reins, fingers that had played over her body, thrilling her, igniting her with their touch. Her mind was in turmoil. Last night, she had wanted to be with him so much, all reason, all conscious thought deserting her. Had she turned to him merely out of comfort, her mind and body shattered and hurt by Edmund’s betrayal? Nay, she doubted that. This feeling, this desire had been building between them for a long time, but she had refused to acknowledge it. What had happened between them was inevitable; Edmund’s treachery had merely been the catalyst.

Even if this was it, she was still glad she had taken the chance to be with him, glad of those few precious, exquisite hours she had spent with this amazing man. Even if her life was nothing from this moment onwards, at least she could hold that memory tight against her heart.

‘I suppose you’d better take me back to Abberley,’ she pronounced finally, her voice sad, closed. Without him, she could try and rebuild her life, gather together what little scraps of dignity she could find, and start again.

The saddle creaked under Bastien’s weight as he dipped forwards to avoid a tree. His face brushed against the bundle of Alice’s hair, loose and tumbling around her. Guilt clawed in his gut; he heard the tint of wretchedness in her voice and knew he was responsible.

‘Will you take me there?’ Alice repeated.

Huge oaks towered around them, rooks’ nests studding the bare upper branches, spiky balls of twig in a wooden mesh. As they passed beneath, the rooks rose up in one mass of black, flashing blades, protesting at the human presence, cawing and cackling.

‘Nay, it’s not safe.’

The warm slenderness of her back nudged constantly against him with the gentle rocking of the horse, despite her best efforts. Holding her thus was sheer, utter torture, constantly reminding him of her naked body in his arms.

‘Not safe?’ Alice turned around awkwardly, trying to see his face, but only succeeded in nearly tipping off. She clutched at the mane as Bastien’s arms tightened around her. ‘But Edmund wouldn’t show his face there again. Not after what he’s done.’

‘It’s not Edmund I’m worried about,’ Bastien replied tersely. ‘I told you before, I’m sure your mother is involved with Edmund. What’s to stop her doing the same thing again?’

Her spine tensed against his chest. The light dappling through the trees brushed the top of her hair, sending flame-coloured sparks through her golden tresses. ‘I can’t believe my mother was involved. Are you sure it was her voice that you heard?’ When she finally spoke, the faintest trace of hope threaded her voice.

‘Nay,’ Bastien found himself replying. ‘Nay, I’m not certain.’ He could protect her from the truth, at least for the moment.

‘Abberley is safe, I’m sure. Remember, my father is there.’

‘There’s nothing to stop Edmund coming back for you.’

‘He wouldn’t dare! Do you think I’d go with him, after what he’s done?’

Bastien laughed, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. This was more like the Alice he had come to know, spirited and courageous.

‘My manor is not far from here. You’ll be safe there.’ But even as the words flew from his lips, he wondered at the truth in them, wondered at his own self-control. She had probably believed herself to be safe in the forest, yet he had abused that trust. But even now, even after all that had happened between them, he couldn’t let her go. ‘That is, of course, if you wish to go with me,’ he added, hesitation hitching his voice.

Alice nodded shakily, a tiny smile lifting her lips. Hope flowered in her veins: he had asked her to go with him! She had believed he would take her back to Abberley, leave her, but no! He had asked if she wished to go back with him to his home; little did he know that she would go with him to the ends of the earth. She simply needed time to convince him.

Lady Cecile de la Roche sighed, hunching forwards to plant her gnarled, arthritic hands on the stone windowsill, her bright green eyes scanning the ground below. Always the same view, the same unending pattern of rippling, gently sloped hills, the forests beyond, vanishing into the blue distance. Lands that her husband, Guy de la Roche, God rest his soul, had set out all those years ago, lands that should have belonged to her beloved son, Guillaume. Her knuckles tightened, nails rasping against the cool stone.

‘My lady?’ Lady Cecile’s maidservant shouldered her way through the door, arms piled high with folded clothes. ‘Are you ready to dress?’

Lady Cecile turned slowly from the window, her ash-blonde hair swinging in two long braids either side of her head. Countless years of scraping it back into the fashionable styles had made it dry, straggly; thank the
Lord she could cover it up every day, hide the evidence of her ageing. She raised one non-existent eyebrow. ‘I suppose I should,’ she responded listlessly to the maid’s enquiry, holding her arms up so the girl could remove her nightgown. She let Mary choose what she wore now; clothes held little interest for her, as long as she looked presentable.

‘There’s some news, my lady,’ Mary blurted out excitedly, tugging at the nightgown’s sleeves.

‘Oh?’ Lady Cecile replied in a bored tone. Nothing ever happened at Foxhayne, only the same dull, repetitious daily routine: the meals, the occasional travelling noble in search of board and lodging, the interminable cycle of the seasons.

‘Lord Bastien is coming.’

Lady Cecile’s half-shuttered eyes snapped open. Her mouth pursed, fine lines radiating out from her thin lips. ‘Who?’ she enquired tonelessly.

‘Lord Bastien,’ Mary repeated, suddenly feeling as if she had stepped onto treacherous quicksand. ‘Your son, Lord Bastien. One of our guards met him on the road; it will not be long before he arrives.’ Maybe her lady was going mad after all; there was talk of it in the kitchens, but Mary had always vehemently denied it, staunchly supporting her mistress.

‘What does he want?’

Mary slipped the silk kirtle over her lady’s head. ‘This is his home, my lady. He has come home.’

‘Aye, but he never comes home if he can help it. Why now?’

Mary frowned. She was finding it difficult to read her lady’s moods these days.

‘He has a girl with him. Beautiful, she is.’

‘A girl? Curious. I thought he didn’t bother with woman after…well, after poor Katherine.’

‘Aye, my lady,’ Mary responded in hushed tones. ‘That was a terrible business.’

‘It was, wasn’t it? Lady Cecile smiled, then clapped her hands briskly. ‘What are you waiting for? Lace me up quickly, my girl. This could prove to be very interesting indeed.’

Mary suddenly wished she had said nothing at all.

T
he manor at Foxhayne sat in a wide, sparsely wooded valley surrounded by fertile pastureland, still verdant green despite the lateness of the year. Cattle grazed the lowland fields, tails swishing back and forth to dispense the flies, while sheep worked their way across the rough, upper pasture. A river cut through the flat bottom of the valley, crowded trees on the banks marking its snaking, glittering path. The manor itself was built of the local sandstone, a pleasing jumble of circular turrets and crenellated walls, bowing out with age. No soldiers strutting along the battlements, no moat or drawbridge. No sign of any defences whatsoever.

Bastien reined in the destrier at the brow of the last hill, scanning the wide bowl of land that contained his home. The last time he had seen it had been above two winters ago, when he had left for France. He had believed then that he would never return to those walls, this land. So many memories! He remembered his mother’s ravaged face, her screams of revenge when
she’d learned of Guillaume’s death, her triumphant look that he’d caught on her face at Katherine’s funeral. The sweet smell of Alice’s hair drifted upwards as she relaxed against him, and he closed his eyes, savouring the intensity of the moment. Maybe now was the time to stop running away, immersing himself in one battle after another; maybe it was time to confront those memories, and his mother.

He noted Alice’s silence. ‘Not quite what you’re used to, I suppose,’ he murmured. ‘No royal guard, or succession of noble guests. No pomp or ceremony.’

‘You know I have no call for such things,’ she replied, her voice like a bell in the clear air. Aye, he did. He had never known a woman so unaffected by all the trappings that riches could bring. He knew her.

Alice shifted in the saddle, the curve of her hip nudging against Bastien’s upper thigh. ‘What a beautiful place,’ she said. Dark green ivy clambered up the walls in places, softening the stone. Briar roses scrambled round the door, the last pink flowers clinging on until the autumn frosts would blacken them. A garden had been laid out to the left of the manor: paved walkways hedged with dark yew trees. ‘Not at all what I expected.’

‘What did you expect?’ He gritted his teeth against the tantalising touch of her hip.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replied teasingly. ‘Some sort of grim fortress teeming with soldiers, a deep moat, a portcullis.’

‘Something more suited to me, you mean.’ A muscle jumped in his jaw. ‘These soft touches have nothing to do with me. My mother’s had the run of the place for several years now, since I’ve been fighting in France. I only come here on brief occasions, to check up on things.’

‘Then why come back now, if you feel nothing for the place?’

‘Because it was the closest.’ He tried to fob her off with the easy answer, not willing to share his thoughts about confronting issues he had long since buried. In truth, he was questioning his own sanity in returning. The breeze washed over him, lifting the short strands of his hair, cool air against his scalp. He wanted to stay there for ever, his arms cradling Alice, feeling the gentle press of her body against his. Sheer, utter torture.

‘Will your mother be there?’ Alice’s voice shook him from his reverie.

‘Aye, she never goes anywhere now. She lost all contact with the outside world when Guillaume died. All she has now is a handful of servants, and Buchan, my bailiff, who manages the land for me.’

‘How sad.’

‘She brought it on herself, Alice.’ His tone was brittle, uncompromising.

‘It can’t have been easy for her, with no husband, losing a son like that, and another son away in battle.’

He caught the sympathy in Alice’s tone. ‘I think you need to meet her, before you make any judgements,’ he replied carefully.

‘And if I’m to meet her, then I can’t go in looking like this!’ Alice exclaimed. ‘Look at my hair!’ She pushed one desperate hand into the tumbling mass, ‘And my dress!’

He loved her the way she was, the glorious silken threads of hair spilling over her shoulders, clinging to the front, the sleeves of his velvet tunic, the flimsy silk of her kirtle shining between the ruined sides of her gown.

‘She’ll not notice, Alice.’

‘Even if she doesn’t, the servants will,’ she replied, throwing one leg frontways over the horse’s neck and slipping to the ground. ‘Haven’t you got anything to secure the back of this?’ She clutched the slipping front of her gown to her breast.

Bastien sighed, dismounted, and began to rummage in one of the satchels tied to the rump of his horse. ‘I thought you gave no care to how you looked,’ he remarked, withdrawing a long coil of leather lace from the bag. ‘You never follow the fashion like the other ladies at court.’

‘Bastien…’ she grinned at him, her small teeth white against her fine, blushed skin ‘…there’s following fashion, and there’s being presentable. I’m not even close to being presentable! What’s your mother going to think if I meet her looking like this?’

Like I’ve made wild, passionate love to you, he thought. The fact that Alice had spent most of the night in his arms was patently obvious. Her hair was mussed, her eyes danced with brilliant light, her lips were red, tender from his kisses.

‘You have a point,’ he replied crisply, his heart thudding with the memory of the night before. ‘Although I doubt she’d even care.’ He turned her about, concentrating on threading the fiddly lace through the rows of holes punched down each side of the gown.

‘Have you threaded every hole?’ Alice asked suspiciously, when, after a very short time, Bastien announced that he was finished.

‘I have,’ Bastien lied, eyeing the huge gaps in the lacing. Impatient to finish, unwilling to torture himself further with the warm feel of her flesh against his fin
gers, he had skipped a few holes. He wrenched at the tailing ends of the laces, so forcefully that he made her stagger backwards, and tied them in a double knot.

Alice raked her fingers through her hair, endeavouring to comb it, and began to bundle it into a long, fat braid. Her arms ached; normally her maid would do this for her. ‘I’ve got no pins to secure it.’ Small white teeth chewed at her bottom lip in frustration. ‘Life would be so much easier with short hair.’ She glared enviously at Bastien’s short, ruffled strands.

‘But so much less beautiful to look at,’ he murmured. Briskly, he secured the curling end of the plait with another length of lace.

‘How do I look?’ Alice stood before him, elbows akimbo, the breeze billowing out her skirts behind her, a sweet smile on her face. Sweet Jesu! His body tensed treacherously in response to the bewitching sight of her. How in Heaven’s name was he going to get through this?

Bastien swallowed hard. ‘You’ll do,’ he muttered.

Cecile stood at the top of the stone steps leading to the wide, arched entrance door of Foxhayne, carefully positioned so she was shadowed from the glare of the noon sun, surprisingly hot for the time of year. She lifted one dainty hand to check her head-dress was positioned properly; the gold mesh rasped against her knuckles. She had dressed carefully: a silk velvet gown, lavishly embroidered, with a pleated bodice and a high neck framing her thin, peevish features. The padded heart-shaped head-dress, the sides fashioned of stiff gold netting, successfully hid every scrap of hair. The sleeves of her gown fell in vast, voluminous gathers,
deliberately designed to fall back and show off the tight, colourful sleeves of her kirtle. Cecile raised her chin, her narrowed cat-green eyes watching the approach of her younger son, the unknown girl. She was ready.

Bastien walked slowly up the track from the gatehouse to the manor, leading his horse, the girl at his side. She was at least a head shorter than him, slender, her blonde, uncovered, hair shining in the sun like spun gold. Cecile watched closely, noticing Bastien deliberately curbed his long stride to match the shorter pace of the maid.

Dispassionately, almost with no interest, she studied her younger son as he approached; big, brawny, the breeze shuffling his blond hair, so like her husband, both in looks and temperament. His brother, Guillaume, God rest his soul, had been more like her, delicate, sensitive. Grief ripped through her belly. Bastien had been a difficult baby, full of energy, desperate to talk, to walk, and once he could, there was no stopping him. He had been exhausting, such a shock after the calm, passive Guillaume, who would gurgle quietly from his cradle, his eyes wide, adoring. And now Bastien was home.

Bastien halted at the base of the steps, lifting his chin up to the woman who had rejected him all those years before. He saw the same brittle, rigid features set in the bleached, parchment skin, the pursed-up mouth, the high forehead. ‘My Lady Cecile,’ he greeted her formally, nodding his head briefly.

‘Bastien,’ Cecile breathed. Her mouth sat in a grim line. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

A groom ran up from around the side of the manor, and led Bastien’s horse away, its hooves slipping on the cobbles as the boy led it to the stables.

‘This is the Lady Alice,’ Bastien explained. ‘She is in need of a place to stay.’

‘So you chose Foxhayne.’ Cecile’s voice was a clipped whine.

‘It was the closest.’

‘No maidservant?’ Cecile looked down at Alice with a disapproving stare.

Alice stepped forwards, smiling, and curtsied. ‘Please forgive the way I look, my lady. Your son rescued me from a…a…situation.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘At this moment I have nothing more than the clothes I stand up in.’

The girl was pretty, Cecile had to admit. And no doubt from noble stock, despite her uncovered hair, her unplucked eyebrows. She spoke like a noble. Her dishevelled clothes were fashioned from expensive cloth, obviously fitted by a proper seamstress. Whatever her son’s faults, he had good taste in women. Katherine had been a beauty, too.

‘Then we must see what we can do to accommodate you…my lady,’ Cecile responded with a hint of a smile towards Alice. She had to make some sort of effort if the maid were to trust her. The thick powder on her skin cracked into tiny wrinkles with the unaccustomed movement of her face.

‘Call me Alice, please.’

Bastien frowned. This wasn’t how he’d expected the initial meeting with his mother to go. He’d anticipated tears, accusations and outright abuse from Cecile, but this? He couldn’t remember the last time his mother had smiled.

‘Well…Alice,’ Cecile continued, ‘I’m sure you must be hungry. Bastien, why don’t you take her to the great
hall, and I’ll instruct the kitchens to bring you some food. You must excuse me, though.’ She noted the swift glance that passed between the two of them, the way the maid seemed tucked into Bastien’s side. Nothing was really obvious, but Cecile knew. Oh, there was something momentous going on between these two, something bigger than Bastien’s relationship with Katherine, she felt it in her bones, she saw it with her beady eyes. She needed time to think, to plan.

Bastien led Alice through the doorway, and into a long passage, its floor set with large, uneven flagstones. After the warm sunshine on her back, the corridor was dark and cool. Alice blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the half-light. A wonderful smell of beeswax and lavender rose to her nostrils, filling the air with the scents of summer; no doubt the mixture was used to polish the wooden furniture in the manor. Tapestries and paintings crowded the walls, full of vibrant colour and intricate stitches.

‘What a lovely home,’ Alice exclaimed in delight. After all the horrors of the previous two days, it was a delight to be in a place so warm and welcoming. Especially when the man she loved was at her side.

‘Is it?’ he replied tonelessly. He was still trying to decipher his mother’s uncharacteristic behaviour; he didn’t trust her one bit. Pushing aside a thick curtain hung over a doorway, he entered the great hall, Alice following. At this time of day, the double-height space was deserted, apart from a single servant stacking the used plates together, clearing up from an earlier meal. Sunlight shafted down from the high windows, gilding spinning circles of dust.

‘It’s certainly very different from all the draughty castles that I’ve spent time in,’ Alice continued. ‘It’s warm and cosy.’

‘I suppose it is,’ Bastien said, sprawling into one of the chairs at the top table, watching Alice’s graceful movement as she tucked herself neatly into the chair beside him. ‘I’ve been away for so long.’

‘What a shame you couldn’t spend more time here.’

His green eyes pierced her face. ‘Our country was at war with France, Alice. You don’t have much time to be idle.’

‘But when you did have time, did you come back here?’

She rested her arms across the table, then leaned forwards; his eye traced the blue veins on the top of her small hand, hands that had held him, caressed him. He should have resented her questioning, but curiously he welcomed it. He wanted to tell her, to share the details of his life with her.

‘Nay.’ He broke off a hunk of bread. ‘I stayed with the Duke. I wasn’t welcome here.’

‘But your mother seems kind.’

‘Nay!’ He thumped one fist against the table, making the used crockery, the goblets and platters, jump. The servant, heading for the kitchens with a stack of empty plates, swivelled his head round, startled. Bastien leaned forwards, his face inches away from Alice’s. She smelled the sweet, heady scent of his breath. ‘Nay, Alice,’ he breathed, ‘she is not. Do not do what you always do, trying to see the good in everyone. Believe me when I tell you that you will not find it in her. You will never find it.’

Trying to shake off the deep layers of slumber, Alice moved her head first one way, then the other on the pillow; the fine linen rustled beneath her hair. She felt as if she had slept for days. Stretching her arms and legs, she relished the cool, crisp material of the sheets against her limbs, the delicious, relaxed feel in her muscles. She opened her eyes carefully against the bright sunlight flooding in through the iron casement windows. Under the window, a carved oak coffer was pushed up against the wall, a large bowl and jug set upon it for washing. Colourful garments were slung across an elm chair on the other side of the room; the clothes were not her own, but no doubt intended for her. Sitting up abruptly, pushing her wayward hair from her face, her mind felt alert, energised by restorative sleep. She bounced out of bed, eager to see Bastien, a fleeting, tantalising hope burning along her veins. Was it possible that they could be together?