For Love And Honor (3 page)

“
That’s
exactly what my seneschal in Normandy says about my estates there,”
Crispin responded with unbroken good humor. “His concern and yours,
too, I think, is all because the king is old and ill.” They went on
in that way, talking at cross purposes, with Crispin remaining
polite while maintaining that he
would
leave Haughston, and Radulf becoming
increasingly annoyed that he could not convince the younger man to
giv
e up his plans.

Joanna stopped listening to them. After
kissing her hand when they were introduced Crispin had tucked it
into his left elbow, placing his right hand over it, so she had to
remain by his side, but she let her glance roam about the hall. All
was in readiness for the midday feast, the tables covered with
snowy linen cloths, the silver cups and plates arranged on the high
table gleaming in the candlelight. At the lower tables wooden
trenchers or plates made from hollowed-out slices of day-old bread
awaited the diners. The servants were bringing in pitchers of wine
and cider and tall silver water ewers with basins and linen towels,
so the guests could wash their hands before eating. She noted these
details with the almost unconscious efficiency of a well-trained
chatelaine. With the same detachment she saw that Rohaise had gone
to instruct one of the servants, and that several of the other male
guests had joined the group around her father and Crispin, but a
portion of her mind remained separate from what was going on in the
hall. In that separate part of her thoughts she was trying to
adjust to what had happened to her that morning.

If she had been given a choice, she would
have taken Alain of Woodward as her husband in a heartbeat. But the
choice had not been hers to make, and she must live with her
father’s decision. Trained as she had been through all her life to
obey him, the thought of defiance barely crossed her mind before
she rejected the idea. She had seen often enough the kind of
punishments meted out to those who interfered with Radulf’s plans.
She would marry Crispin and make no protest about it.

At least
they would travel. She had long dreamed of foreign lands, and now
she would see them. She would cross the Narrow Sea to Normandy and
follow the pilgrim route into glamorous, mysterious Spain, where
Saracens lived. She might even see a Saracen in flowing robes,
mounted upon his fleet steed, or gaze upon the fabled cities of
Moorish Spain. Bedazzled by the prospect, she almost convinced
herself that she
wanted
to marry Crispin, until she saw Alain watching her. Then
her heart constricted with a painful twist, and all thought of
travel and an interesting life beyond the gates of Banningford
Castle crumpled downward into ashes.

* * * *
*

“Art moonstruck?” Piers clapped a hand on
Alain’s shoulder.

“Does it show?” It was no use trying to keep
anything from Piers. His eyes were sharp and his quick thoughts
went to the nub of every problem.

“To me it shows,” Piers said. “But I think
Crispin has not noticed yet. At the moment he’s divided between
concentrating on his lady and paying respectful attention to her
father’s rantings.”

“I’d hide my feelings from both of them. I’d
not hurt Crispin or Joanna, or make either unhappy for my
sake.”

“If I were you, I’d watch the lady’s father
too,” Piers advised. “I think he has noticed your interest in his
daughter.”

“Thank you.” Alain forced a smile. Trying to
sound like his usual carefree self, he said, “Let’s eat and drink;
let’s celebrate Crispin’s coming nuptials.”

“Don’t drink too much, lest you speak amiss
when the wine fills your head and say something you ought to keep
to yourself.”

“You were not always so cautious before you
became a knight, old Sir Piers,” said Alain, laughing now.

“All’s not as it should be in this place.
There is something strange about Radulf’s determination to keep his
daughter and son-in-law at home. I think he is truly angry about
Crispin’s plans to travel to Normandy and to stay away for several
years. From what I’ve seen of Radulf so far, I doubt if it’s
because he loves his daughter too much to part with her for
long.”

“
Who
would not love her?” Fortunately, Alain’s voice was too soft for
anyone but Piers to hear him. He watched Crispin lead Joanna to the
high table. “What a sweet and lovely lady she is. See how
gracefully she moves, how her face lights when she smiles. And her
hair
– dear God, that
wondrous
, golden hair!”

“Have a care.” Piers’s voice was as quiet as
Alain’s own, but the note of warning was sharp and clear, and it
sobered Alain at once.

“Aye,” Alain said, linking his arm with
Piers’s and pulling him toward the tables, “I have always found
your advice to be well-spoken. I’ll heed it now.”

But for
the immediate future heeding Piers’s excellent advice was clearly
going to be difficult, for at that instant Crispin saw them, and at
his insistence extra seats were brought so they could both
be placed at the high table among the most
favored guests, with Piers next to a pretty young
noblewoman and Alain beside Joanna.

At first she did not look at him. She could
not bear to. Fearing he would see how her hands trembled, she ate
little, but sat with her right hand tightly covering the bracelet
on her left wrist, hoping thus to keep them still. She averted her
eyes, looking toward Crispin, who ate meat pie and a large slice of
roasted ox with healthy relish and without seeming to notice her
discomfort.

“I hope Lady Rohaise did not mind the change
in seating,” Crispin remarked between bites of meat. “I could not
let my kinsmen sit at the lower tables.”

“Of course not.” Then, realizing what he had
said, she added, “I did not know they were related to you. I
thought they were but friends.”

“
They are
friends, and much more besides.” Crispin lifted his silver goblet
for a servant to refill it, then drank deeply before he went on in
the serious, solemn way she was beginning to think was his
natur
al manner of speaking. “We three
are cousins in various degrees. The mothers of
Alain and Piers were sisters; Alain’s grandfather and mine were
brothers. We are all but a few months apart in age, and as it
happened, we were fostered at the same castle. After being pages
and later squires together, after living together for so many
years, we are more like brothers, and I for one fully expect that
we will remain on the same good terms for the rest of our
lives.”

“
I pray
it may be so,” Joanna said, silently vowing never to do anything to
damage that precious friendship. She forbade herself to think about
Alain with longing. She would think only of Crispin, her betrothed,
who seemed to her even on such short acquaintance to be an honest,
serious-minded young
man. She could respect him, and she
owed him her allegiance.

But during the feast she could not avoid
talking with Alain, for it would have looked strange if she had
tried to ignore him. When Rohaise excused herself from the table in
order to see to some domestic matter, leaving only an empty seat
separating Crispin from Radulf, and Radulf claimed Crispin’s
attention once again by extolling the benefits of a baron remaining
at home where he would be readily available to attend to any
emergencies on his lands, good manners forced Joanna to converse
with Alain.

“Crispin’s a fine man,” Alain said, looking
hard at her. “He will treat you well. Be equally gracious to
him.”

“
I intend
to be the wife he wants.” Her chin was up, her expression cool and
distant.
“Nor will I
interfere in his friendships.”

“It’s odd that Crispin should be the first of
us to wed,” Alain mused, “when it’s Piers and I who have always
chased after the ladies, while Crispin never seemed to care about
them at all.”

Wondering
if he
was deliberately trying to ir
ritate her to see if he could elicit a heated
response, she kept her voice crisp and cold.

“I do not consider continence a defect in my
betrothed,” she said, “nor will I find it a fault in my
husband.”

“
I did
not think you would.” Intensely aware of her pain and confusion,
which he sensed matched his own, Alain ached to touch her, or at
least to say something to commend her gallant attempt to hide the
distress of her spirit. Thanks to her self-control he did not think
anyone in the great hall had noticed the immediate and overwhelming
flare of attraction between them except Piers and, possibly, Father
Ambrose. And her watchful father, of course; but after the marriage
ceremonies she would no longer be under Radulf’s jurisdiction but
Crispin’s, and thus she would be safe from Radulf’s ire. Alain
wanted her to be safe. He wanted
– ah, God in heaven, he wanted her! He had known
lovely women before and had enjoyed the favors of several,
including one very highly placed lady, and he had cared deeply for
at least two of those women, but never in all his twenty-one years
had he experienced the devastating certainty of knowing within
moments of meeting a woman that she was the other half of his soul.
And with the same pure and absolute certainty, as though she had
spoken the words aloud in her precise and beautifully modulated
voice, he knew Joanna had experienced the same blinding revelation
of enduring and passionate attachment.

Bitterly
he reminded himself that on the day after
next Joanna would
belong forever to Cris
pin, his
kinsman, his friend. Hearing Radulf’s loud voice raised even higher
in dispute with Crispin, Alain felt a peculiar chill go down his
spine, a premonition of he knew not what unlucky occurrence. The
sensation
made him take
a risk he otherwise would not have chanced. As far as he
dared, before he and Joanna could be interrupted, he said what was
in his heart.

“My sweet lady, I know not how it happened so
suddenly and completely that I should be irrevocably attached to
you, but I do swear that I am your servant until I die. If you ever
have need of me, if aught goes wrong in your life, you have but to
send word and I will come to your aid.”

“I will have a husband to protect me.” She
spoke sharply so as to hide what she felt. Ah, how she wished he
had kept silent. His words were a temptation, feeding a dream she
should not treasure, just when she had promised herself to think no
more of him.

“
I meant
the promise for Crispin as well as for you,” he said quietly. “He’s
more than kin; he’s a dear friend, too, and after your marriage,
through him you will be my kin as well. The times are difficult,
Lady Joanna. Who knows what may befall us in the years to come? We
keep a large garrison at Woodward. I have alrea
dy said the
same words to Crispin, but I wanted you to
hear them too. If you need me, alone or with my
men-at-arms, you have but to ask.”

The feast
had ended and the guests began to drift out of the hall. There was
to be a hunting party that afternoon that would last well into the
long twilight of midsummer, and men collected in groups, calling to
each other that they would meet at the stables or in the outer
bailey. Alain stood, putting his hand to Joanna’s elbow to help her
rise. On her other side Crispin pushed back his chair, still
talking
– or rather,
listening – to her father. Alain’s eyes were on her, and some
recognition of his promise of aid seemed appropriate. In a few days
he would be gone, out of her life for years and possibly forever.
Until then she could keep her feelings hidden.

“I thank you for your loyal friendship,” she
said, giving him her hand. He held it a bit over-long, until her
father stepped to her side, frowning.

“Sir Alain has promised support to my husband
and me in time of trouble,” Joanna said to him, hoping thus to
allay the almost certain explosion of Radulf s temper.

“Armed support is a man’s business and no
affair for a woman to concern herself with,” Radulf growled,
unappeased. “If he has something to say on that matter, he ought to
say it to Crispin.”

“So I have. And I promise the same support to
you, my lord,” said Alain. With a bow he left the table, joining
Piers and heading for the outer door.

“Young fool,” grumbled Radulf, staring after
him with a calculating look.

“He is occasionally impetuous,” Crispin said,
“but he is an honorable man, Radulf. You can always depend on Alain
to do what is right. My lady Joanna, will you ride next to me in
the hunt this afternoon?”

“Gladly, my lord.” Joanna took his hand and
let him lead her into the entry hall, to the foot of the staircase
that curved along the inside of the western tower, where her
chamber was.

“Put on your hunting garb,” Crispin said in
his serious way, “and I’ll remove these extravagant silks and also
don more sensible clothes. Do you enjoy the hunt?”

“
I like
to ride,” Joanna responded, “but I have no taste for the kill. I
always feel sorry for the poor, trapped beasts.” She ended the
words with a guilty laugh, for after every hunt her fa
ther
al
ways scolded her about her
queasiness at the sight of a dying animal.

“
I
perceive that you are a kind and gentle-hearted lady,” Crispin
said, pulling her hand upward to rest it against his broad chest.
“This pleases me greatly, since I am not overly fond of hunting
myself. I’ve seen too many lords take unseemly pleasure in the
cruelty of it. I know hunting is necessary
– we need the meat it provides to feed our
people – but I will never burn with passion for the spilling of
blood.”