Enduringly Yours (11 page)

She narrowed her gaze at him in warning.

“That leaves me with a fortnight to get her up to par.” Peter sighed. “It will require many hours of close concentration.”

She felt her face burning. Peter was asking for it now. “Do not be so sure your student will not use it against you,” she said.

Gilburn laughed.

“I shall place an apple on my head for you.” Peter smiled.

“Give her a better target than that.” Gilburn ran a hand through his hair. “How about we-”

Lady Havendell cleared her throat. Both men were silent for all of four heartbeats.

“You could use Gilburn as your target,” Peter said.

Zipporah’s fingers tightened around the reins. Even her mother could not convince Peter to keep his mouth shut.

“He does not run very fast,” Peter continued.

Gilburn’s jaw worked. When it came to these sorts of verbal volleys, he could only hold his own for so long.

Zipporah reined in closer to Peter, knowing full well that her horse was still anxious around the stallions. Her gelding popped a little buck—his way of refusing her command. When it got Peter’s attention, she gave him her blackest look.

He touched his finger to his mouth, signaling silence.

She could only hope he was referring to his own.

* * *

Zipporah’s mother talked Gilburn into identifying a fish she saw down the shore, leaving Zipporah and Peter conveniently alone. Peter watched her poke at a pasty with her jeweled dagger. She was sitting on a patchwork blanket with her legs tucked under her. A soft, earthy breeze flipped bits of hair around her face and she tucked them behind her ears with her free hand.

“I think it is dead, my lady.”

She frowned at her bludgeoned meal.

Peter urged Zipporah’s dagger out of her hand, then used it to skewer a chunk of roast lamb. “Suddenly, my appetite has grown.”

“Brought on no doubt by all the energy you’re putting into annoying Gilburn.”

“Probably. You still aren’t eating very much.”

“I should have had the venison pie.”

“I think Gilburn finished it.” Peter waved the dagger in Gilburn’s direction. He closed one eye, sighting Gilburn on the end of it. “I could find out.”

She took the blade from him, wiping it clean on a napkin and sheathing it on her belt. “No dismemberment today.” She stood, brushing herself off. “Walk with me?”

“Aye.” Peter came to his feet.

Soft waves lapped the shore. Pebbles crunched under foot. Zipporah didn’t take his offered arm. She said nothing, and the silence between them felt like a void he needed to fill.

“It used to be like magic here,” Zipporah said finally. “When we were children.” She glanced over her shoulder. He followed her line of sight. Gilburn had picked up his pace. Her mother was dragging along behind, probably on purpose. Her maid mysteriously began to limp.

“Another time,” she whispered.

“Keep moving.” He took her hand.

“I do not know how to act around you when he is watching.” She pulled away.

“You can act however you want. I will deal with the consequences.”

“That is what frightens me.” Zipporah shivered in the cooling air.

“I would gladly warm you.” He bumped his shoulder against hers. “I could build you a fire instead.”

“Gilburn will want to go home.”

“I assure you, my lady.” Peter heard Gilburn. “That it is a pike.”

“It did not look like one,” Lady Havendell said.

“I know what a pike looks like.”

“But with half its face missing, how can you be so sure?”

“I am sure.”

“I think a bird must have pecked its face away. What do you think?”

“Unless the foxes have suddenly grown beaks, then I would say aye, my lady.”

“I wonder what kind of bird? Can you tell?”

Zipporah laughed into her sleeve. It was a nice sound. Peter wanted to hear it more often.

“Sometimes I really do love my mother,” she said.

“She has been very tolerant.” Tolerant with him, especially. More than Peter would ever have expected. He couldn’t understand why.

“My lady.” Gilburn nodded to Zipporah. He ignored Peter. “Walk with me before we leave.”

Her smile faded. “Peter said we should build a fire.”

“It is getting late. I need to take you home.”

“She wishes to stay, Gilburn. If you want, you can go on ahead. I will bring the ladies along later.”

Gilburn’s eyes flashed. “We are leaving now.” He offered Zipporah his arm. She hesitated before accepting. Peter wanted to take him by the collar of his black leather jerkin and shake him until all his teeth rattled loose.

“She isn’t afraid of the dark,” Peter called after them.

“I am responsible for her safety.”

“Over my dead body,” Peter said under his breath.

“Come with me.” Lady Havendell touched his arm. “Help me pack up?”

He walked with her, keeping an eye on Zipporah and Gilburn. Watching them side by side was not on his list of favorite ways to spend his time. Lady Havendell handed him a basket, then she and her maid began gathering up used utensils. Peter backed the wagon onto the narrow shore.

“Thank you.” Lady Havendell passed him another basket. “This is all very hard on you. Zipporah will make the right decision, when the time is best for her.”

“And what of you?”

Lady Havendell looked over the lake, her face pained.

“You will have to come with us,” Peter said. “You won’t be safe otherwise.”

“I have not yet decided if I want to leave my home. Too many memories.”

“But is it worth your life?”

“It is my choice to make.”

Lady Havendell was as stubborn as her daughter. “And what about Zipporah? Does she get to choose whether or not she loses you?”

“You sound like your brother, Sir Peter.” She smiled. “Gilburn only wants the land. Once he has it, I will be of no threat whatsoever.”

Maybe. But Zipporah would not want to be parted from her mother, and that only made things harder for him. He took up a third basket, thinking about the missive he’d written King Richard. It would be months before he received a reply. There was no way to know how long her father would linger, but he wouldn’t last
that
long.

Peter knew what it must feel like to be in limbo.

Caught between Heaven and Hell.

He wondered how long he could go on like this, day after day in self-denial, while Zipporah was so close that he could, and
had
tasted her. It would be very easy to forget the promise he’d made himself not to make her his mistress before she was his wife. He found himself wondering why it had been so important to wait in the first place.

Like in the middle of the night, when he couldn’t sleep without her.

“Sir Peter, would you mind lighting the torches for us?” Lady Havendell asked.

He tore his eyes away from Zipporah. “Of course not.”

Peter started a small fire from moss and bark, then lit a stick in it and fired up the lanterns, checking periodically to make sure Gilburn was behaving himself. He and Zipporah had turned and were almost back. He was smiling like a satisfied cat. Zipporah looked at Peter and rolled her eyes. She took up her horse’s reins, seeming eager to leave.

“I’ll give you a boost,” Peter said.

“I do not need . . .” Her eyes widened as if she’d just realized why he’d offered in the first place. “Oh, aye. Thank you.”

He closed his palms around her waist. “Tomorrow, we shall work on your bow arm,” he said, lifting her onto her horse. “And maybe a few other things as well.”

She leaned closer, her braid swinging over her shoulder, her scent of juniper following it. “Sir Gilburn told me he plans to spend time with me tomorrow.”

“When is he the most likely to?”

“In the afternoon.” She pretended to adjust her skirts, even though they were fine. “He is usually very busy in the morning.”

“Then I shall see you first thing tomorrow.”

“Sir Peter, you might as well ride home,” Gilburn said, a little too loudly. “It makes no sense for you to go all the way to Havendell and then back again.”

Peter swung onto his horse. “The sun is setting, and you never know what may prowl the night. One more sword on hand will not hurt.”

Gilburn sat up straighter in the saddle. “I assure you, if trouble should arise, I can defend the ladies myself.”

“Do not be so proud, Gilburn. No man is without his blind side.”

“Some have more than others,” Gilburn muttered

“I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself if I were you.”

Zipporah cleared her throat.

“Tomorrow at noon,” Gilburn gritted. “The lists. For a rematch. And wear your chainmail. I wouldn’t want to send you home in a box.” Gilburn spun his stallion around, dug spurs, and tore away, kicking up moss behind him and disappearing into the twilight.

“He left us?” Zipporah said.

“It would seem his pride is more important to him than your safety.”

“What good will a rematch make between the two of you anyway?”

Peter shrugged. “None, in the end. But at least we can
pretend
we are killing each other.”

“I do not like it.”

“Neither do I,” Lady Havendell said.

Peter was losing his patience with everything. He needed a decent night’s sleep. Preferably passed out in Zipporah’s arms after a long night of—never mind, it wasn’t worth torturing himself over.

“Some things must be left to men, my ladies.”

Zipporah glared.

Her mother sighed long-sufferingly.

Chapter Twelve

“Why do we not do something different with your hair today,” Lady Havendell said as Zipporah sat down at her dressing table the following morning.

At her mother’s request, she was wearing a new wool kyrtle. Never dyed, it was of the purest ivory. The sleeves of her shift showing beneath the capped kyrtle were embroidered with oak leaves and acorns. She wore her brown leather belt slung low on her hips.

Lady Havendell picked up a comb.

“
What
are you doing, Mother?”

“Your hair, sweetling.” She divided Zipporah’s waves into sections.

“That is not what I meant.”

“Do something for me?” Her mother reached for a green ribbon.

“Aye . . . ?”

“Say something kind to him today.”

“Peter?”

“Aye, Peter.”

“He is having a rematch with Gilburn, simply because he could not keep his mouth shut.”

“I know. I do not like it either, but do so anyway.” Her mother tied off the first ribbon, then took up another. “He reminds me so much of your father. Just humor me, please.”

Lady Havendell began plaiting a second braid, weaving the ribbon through as she went. Zipporah didn’t know what to say, so she sat silently while her mother finished dressing her hair with three plaits all down the back of her head.

Finished, Lady Havendell laid them over her shoulder. “It is time for Mass,” she said.

Zipporah followed her mother out of the chamber, down the narrow stone staircase, and then outside, wondering how any woman could stay so strong, while the love of her life lay wasting away in a sick chamber.

* * *

Peter surprised her by attending morning Mass. He was in back, with a coarse brown cloak pulled around his shoulders and a hood over his head. Gilburn didn’t seem to notice him. But she did. She dared not look twice lest it cue Gilburn in, so she walked right past. Zipporah and her mother both genuflected in turn, then took their usual places. Gilburn was across the aisle from them.

Zipporah listened to the priest, pretending to ignore Peter’s presence, while being acutely aware of it at the same time. Afterwards, she paid homage to all the saints necessary for the unlikely healing of her father, for the memory of her brother, and all those poor souls still at war.

And then she waited, like she did every morning, for Gilburn to leave. Once he had, she went to the image of Mary Magdalene. Peter had slipped into the shadows so Gilburn wouldn’t see him watching and was still there. Zipporah was even more aware of his presence, but it could not be helped. She never missed her ritual, and wasn’t about to start now. Kneeling, she mouthed her prayer of penance, then crossed herself, stood self-consciously, and met her mother by the door. They left the sanctuary. Peter followed after, minus the cloak. He was uncharacteristically quiet as he walked with her, dressed in a tunic the same color as her kyrtle.

“We need to stop doing this.”

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing. I do not have a bow anymore.”

“I brought a few with me.”

Lady Havendell touched Zipporah’s arm. “I am going to check on your father.” She dismissed herself before Zipporah could say a word, leaving them alone.

“Have you eaten anything?” Peter asked.

“Nay.”

“Then that is what we should do first.” He looked her over, generating a confusing mix of emotions. Guilt, pain, pleasure . . . “You look good,” he said.

“Thank you. It is new.” She smoothed her hands over her kyrtle. “It is nice out this morning. We could break our fast in the garden. I will go ahead and tell the kitchen maids.” She moved around him, but he stopped her.

“Why did you dress like this today?”

“It was my mother’s idea.”

“Not yours?”

She shrugged, remembering what her mother had said about being nice to Peter. “It seems there is to be a duel in the lists. Maybe I thought I should dress for the occasion.”

He ducked his head, looking her face to face. “Still mad at me about that?”

“I could be.”

“Then forget I brought it up.” Smiling, he placed her hand in the crook of his arm. “The kitchens?”

They made their way to the building housing the cooking hearths. Zipporah gave the serving maids their orders then she and Peter waited for them in the garden. Her mother came just as a table was being brought out.

Zipporah watched the way her mother treated Peter while they ate. Lady Havendell made sure he was satisfied with the layout of the table, and with the food. She thanked him for watching out for Zipporah and told him she was sorry Gilburn was making things so difficult.

Was this her mother’s way of dealing with her grief? Trying to push her and Peter together? It was all beginning to make sense now. Zipporah’s heart felt hollowed out.

“I am finished,” her mother said, setting aside her napkin and standing. “Thank you for allowing me to join you.”

Peter stood with her. “Thank you for joining us, my lady.”

She bowed her head. “Where will you two conduct your lesson?”

“In the orchard.”

“I shall be near.” She looked at Zipporah. “But not too near.”                

Heat crept up Zipporah’s face at the innuendo. “Thank you,” she gritted, then she looked at Peter, and found him watching her closely. “What?”

“Warm today,” he said, lifting his goblet.

She pressed the back of her hand to her cheek. He just
had
to point that out to her. “It must be.”

“Don’t you think you should finish that before we start?” He gestured to her food.

She took a bite. “Better?”

“Somewhat.” He waited while she finished, then stood. He held out his hand and she let him pull her to her feet. Lacing warm fingers through hers, he walked her down the path toward the orchard.

“Don’t you have to get your gear from the stable?” she asked.

“It is here already.”

“You were very early this morn, weren’t you?”

“I usually am.” He stopped, lowering his voice. “You do not have to petition Mary Magdalene, you know.”

She pulled her hand free from his.

“Do you do that often? Pray for forgiveness?”

She’d deceived her father, asked her mother to lie for her, and she was still hiding the truth from Peter.

“Zipporah?”             

She held up a hand. “Let’s just practice my archery.”

He wanted to say more. She could tell.

“Peter, please.”

“Aye,” he acquiesced, but she knew the conversation wasn’t over.

* * *

“Your aim is improving.”

Zipporah turned to look at Peter from over her shoulder. He was leaning against a pear tree, well behind her. It was the safest place to be, she supposed. “I am going to embarrass myself at the competition, aren’t I?”

“Of course not.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Maybe just a little.”

Zipporah turned and faced her straw target. “This is harder than I remembered. Perhaps it is good that my mother isn’t too close by. With my aim, I would probably shoot her by accident.”

Peter came up behind her. “Here.” He took the bow, then an arrow from where they’d pushed the tips into the ground at her feet. “Line it up the way I showed you.” He cocked the string back and let the shot go, hitting the bull’s-eye directly in the center.

“Perfect shot, of course,” she muttered.

He passed the bow back to her. Zipporah took up an arrow, nocked it, and then lifted and started to draw. Her arms were sore. “It is too hard to pull back.” She lowered it again.

“Try this one.” He handed her another bow. “The tension is lower.”

She loaded it and drew back the string.

“Better?” he asked.

“Aye.” She took her time sighting the target.

“You could have told me that you were struggling.”

“I thought I would get used to it.” Zipporah let the arrow fly. She didn’t hit the bull’s-eye, but at least she did hit the target, along the edge. “Well, that was better.”

“How’s your arm holding out? Can you try a few more?”

Zipporah flexed her fingers. They’d tied her sleeve back because it was getting in the way. “My skin is raw where the string has brushed against it.” She showed him the inside of her arm.

He winced. “I brought a brace for you, but I forgot.” Peter dug through his saddle bag and pulled out a leather arm cuff. “This belonged to John’s page before he grew out of it. It might fit you.”

He positioned it around her arm and did up the laces. “Too tight?”

Peter was being very patient.
Too
patient. “Peter, you do not have to do this.”

His brow furrowed as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

“You do not have to be so nice.”

“I . . .” He let go of her hand.

Maybe she should have skipped her final prayer for the sake of sparing his heart.

“I do not know what else to do for you,” he said.

“Just forget what you saw this morning.”

“As if I could.” Peter cradled the back of her head in his hand. “I was beginning to wonder why I vowed to marry you before we could be together again.” His thumb caressed her scalp. “At least I was wondering, until I saw you praying.”

“Peter . . .”

“Stop.”

“Nay, I will not stop, because I know you blame yourself.”

His hand slid away. “Shouldn’t I?”

“I was the one who let you through my window in the first place.”

“And I was the one who kept coming back for more.”

“It is in the past now.”

“Is it?”

She didn’t know what to say.

“I think we are done with your lesson.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I was wrong. Back then. And aye, I meant everything I wrote in my letter.”

“I know.” Her voice was small.

“It is almost time for me to duel Gilburn,” he said, closing the subject.

She felt immediately guilty. About everything.

“John will be here soon as well,” he said. “He does not want to miss it.”

Zipporah watched Peter gather up his gear, hating the injured look on his face. She knew she was weakening him. Her greatest fear was that Gilburn would find a way to have him killed. If Peter was not in full control, it could happen.

“Please be careful out there,” she said. “It seems I worry about you no matter what. I did not want you sneaking around because I felt badly for you. Now I do not want you here in such a public manner for fear he will have you killed.”

Peter made to shake his head, but Zipporah stopped him, slipping her fingers into this sandy blond hair and pulling his face down to hers. His eyes widened as she paused with her mouth a hair’s width from his. “What do you need, Sir Knight, to win yon battle?”

He hesitated and she pressed her palm against his chest, noting the thump of his heart. She lowered her hand down his stomach, feeling his muscles tighten in response. He stopped her when she reached his belt, his breath ragged.

“You,” he said. “I need you.”

She needed him too, but her cowardliness was keeping them apart. How stubborn was she? Stubborn enough to get him killed?

“I probably should not be doing this outside of our hiding places,” she said. Zipporah wiggled her hand, still in his grasp. With a groan of resignation he released her. “It is for luck.” She kissed him, letting her hands roam free.

By the time they jerked apart— at the sound of a muffled gasp—they were both out of breath, Peter’s clothes in disarray, and Zipporah’s laces halfway undone.

“Working hard,” Gilburn said. A vein on his forehead pulsed.

Peter clamped his hand protectively around her wrist, urging her behind him. “If she keeps at it,” he said, “she might just hold her own.”

She pulled tight her laces with one hand, holding them in place at her breasts.

Gilburn flexed his fingers. “Keeps at what, pray tell?”

“I was referring to her archery. What were you suggesting?”

Gilburn’s face turned livid red.

Zipporah tried to break free. If she could just talk to Gilburn then maybe she could diffuse the situation. Peter wouldn’t release her. She glared at the back of his head.

“She is fatigued,” Peter said. “It must be the sun.”

Gilburn’s eyes were like the blackest of holes. She found herself willingly hiding behind Peter.

“Just what were the two of you doing?” he asked.