My True Love (15 page)

What he left to history would be seen as bricks and stone and the reverence he felt for the legacy that was his. He doubted people would marvel at his life or his exploits as much as simply count him as one of many. A link in a chain that had never been broken.

Was there time to create a legacy? Something that might mark him as separate? A singular Earl of Langlinais? Were there enough years left to him? Or was he destined to die in battle? A question more properly asked of those who believed in predestination.

He rode to the top of the hill overlooking Langlinais. If he squinted, he could envision the castle as it might have looked six hundred years ago. A rambling place, whitewashed and glaring on a spring dawn. The three baileys would be green with lush grass, the garden would give off a heady scent of flowers. The river would be high because of the spring rains, the bank protected by a short wall built the length of the castle complex. Birds would nest in the embrasures as they did now, calling out a warning of an early-evening rain. Above all would be the sound of laughter.

Home. A longing for this place sliced through him like a sword. He could not retreat to the past. He could not remain where he was. The only course was to go forward.

He turned, but before he could descend the hill, looked back at the castle. It had become what it was again. Simply ruins of a place he knew, had always known.

In the silence of the morning he could almost envision Juliana slipping into the north tower to hide her coffer and its tantalizing codex. Why had she done so? What were the secrets she alluded to so mysteriously?

A woman of mystery.

As if he’d summoned her with his thoughts, he saw Anne then. She stood beyond the gardens of Harrington Court. The dawn light blessed her with radiance, cast a gentle shadow over her form.

Was he a fool to think her not an enemy? They lived in perilous times, and she was from Scotland. That country was divided as to which English side to support.

A spy, Stephen?
If so, she was a poor one. She’d held him when he was in pain, and her only act of secrecy was in drawing pictures of his castle. Betty liked her, as well as Ned.

As well as he.

She had not pulled away when he’d kissed her, had not repudiated him, only his apology. In fact, she’d looked irritated with him when he’d spoken it. Almost angered. A woman of some will. A terrible spy, if so. An intriguing woman.

He grinned and raced to meet her.

She didn’t flinch as he reined Faeren up within inches of her. A test, then, if she’d known it. Or perhaps she did. There was something in her look that said she did. A pride, if the flush on her cheeks was any indication.

Or anger. She did not hide it from him. She was no sweet miss with simpering manners. Nor was she a courtesan used to men’s fawning. She was strangely both and neither.

A woman to be wary of, certainly. One who fascinated him too much. Hours had been spent with thoughts of words he might teach her, Latin phrases she could learn and in the recollection of them also remember him.

The rising sun lit her face, as if nature itself recognized the delicacy of her profile. Her hair looked as if it had recently been brushed, tied back as it was with a scarlet ribbon. If he found one today or five years hence, he would thread it through his fingers and think of her.

He should not have studied her so intently, but he found himself captivated. Her neck was slender, leading to a chin and jaw that were finely carved. Her lips were solemn in repose, the bottom one more full than the top. The mouth of a lover. Not a woman barely escaped from childhood, with the glow of youth still upon her. The green dress she wore hinted at a ripe figure; hips that curved and breasts that thrust against her laces promised it. Eyes as brown as the earth beneath his feet but hinting at gold in their depths surveyed him with the wise stare of an owl.

He had been wrong to compare her to a courtesan. He could not remember ever seeing a woman at any court party who rivaled her in beauty. Not that of paint and artifice, but natural and unre strained. A piece of gilt contrasted to the beauty of the sky. Nature won each time.

Her charm was more than her loveliness. It was the way she spoke of this place called Dunniwerth that was her home. The way she looked at Langlinais as if she felt the enchantment of it. And more. Something more that he could not explain, not even to himself.

He did not deal in imponderables, but only those things he might touch and feel. There were things in her eyes that lured him. She was a danger and a delight. She was frightened of storms and talked of circles, spoke in a burr of soft accent and enticed him to think of things he had not thought of for years. He found himself amused by her comments and cast into thought by her questions. Her presence at Harrington Court had never been totally explained, but he cared less for the reason for it than to understand the woman herself.

He’d known her for a week. Two, if one counted the time he was insensible. He’d talked with her on numerous occasions, been charmed by her wit, fascinated by the mystery of her, tempted by the woman.

He was at the king’s mercy and subject to his will. As soon as her companion was ready to travel, she would be on her way, her destination and errand unknown to him. They would, in all certainty, never meet again.

It stunned him.

He raised his hand as if to summon her or place his palm upon the face of time itself. She glanced at him quizzically, a faint smile on her face.

“You are abroad early,” he said, dismounting.

“I could not sleep,” she said.

His night had been as restless. He wondered what had kept her awake. Thoughts, dreams, or fears?

“I did not think you could manage him one handed,” she said, nodding at Faeren.

He smiled, genuinely amused by her comment. “In battle I rarely use the reins at all. Otherwise,” he said, “my sword would be useless.” Faeren shook his head as if he knew he was being discussed. “He’s trained to knee commands.”

She reached out and rubbed Faeren’s nose. He should have told her that he was a temperamental stallion renowned for his endurance and heart. Not a pretty pet. But he should have known his horse would be as easily charmed as his master. Faeren nearly preened beneath her attentions.

A wiser man would have parted from her then. Would have smiled and played the host with geniality and perhaps some fondness. He would have bowed and removed himself from her presence, attended to those myriad details that fell to him as a commander of men. Or even fled from her presence, prudence being wiser than regrets.

But he didn’t. Perhaps he was fevered, not by a suppurating wound, but by spring. Perhaps he was lonely on this morning, and she’d stepped into the role of friend and confidante. Or perhaps he fooled himself that the mystery of Juliana’s chronicles was the only thing that bound them.

“I’ve messages to send,” he said. Words of apology to the king. But he did not tell her that. Instead, he offered her the only thing he had that was valuable. Time. It slipped through his fingers like ground diamonds. “Will you join me for the noon meal? There, where the trees border the river. We’ll have our meal and a bit of Latin.”

“And Juliana’s chronicles?”

“Yes.” There was little time to complete them. But he’d not hurried himself along, had taken each passage as if it had been delicious and to be savored. Juliana’s words had served to join them together. He’d not wished the mystery too easily solved.

She nodded. Agreement without a word spoken. Effortless conspiracy. She was as unwise as he, then. Or as daring. She looked not at him but at his horse, and Faeren snorted. An equine laugh at human hesitation.

“What would you have done,” she asked, turning to him, “if it had been your sword arm that was injured?”

“I would have practiced until I’d become proficient with my left,” he said. A simple truth. One that did not seem to surprise her.

She looked as if she would have liked to say something, then had changed her mind. A small nod of either admonition to herself or warning to him not to ask.

He had the strange feeling that a fragile fence stretched between them, comprised of good manners and civility, honor and nobility, and virtue. He’d scaled it despite the fact that she was without protector and far from home.

She’d spoken his name and known of his childhood hiding place. But that was not the true depth of her mystery. It lay in the fact that she looked at him sometimes as if she knew his thoughts or could understand the words he did not speak. As if she was a friend who’d been away for a time and now stood waiting for him to recognize her. An odd sensation.

Nor was that the only one. Even with his amusement, even adrift in his confusion, in his wondering, he could not forget her touch. She’d placed her hands on him. Reached up to brush a kiss upon the corner of his lips, returned his improvident kiss with an ardor that had stunned him.

She’d asked him to name those things he feared. Afraid? Not of things he could conquer. Not of circumstances he could easily overcome. Not even of nature’s fury. But of a woman who felt known to him, who smiled at him at this moment and urged him to think of warm beds and soft murmurs? Even a fool would be cautious, and he had never been a fool.

He stepped back, mounted Faeren again. He did not say farewell to her. It might have been good practice for the moment soon to come. Instead, he simply lifted his hand in a wave. Then left her.

Penroth’s man walked along the cobbled streets of Lange on Terne and wondered at the neatness of the town. He was an Englishman but not a Royalist. It hardly seemed to matter in this small town. Not one person looked at his garments with anything like suspicion. Or wondered that his hair was cut shorter than most.

They were friendly in this place, a benefit to his mission. The only drawback to it was the fact that there were too many soldiers for his liking.

A little boy, no older than three, was being hefted on the shoulders of one of those uniformed men. He pulled on his hair and bounced on his shoulders, for all the world as if the man were a horse.

“Your son?” he asked. A comment he’d half expected to be rebuffed, him a stranger and all. But the man stopped and smiled.

“He is,” he said with pride.

“A great lad.”

“He is that.”

More conversation divulged that he hadn’t seen the lad for two years. Duty had taken him from his home.

The earl’s name was mentioned more than once in their talk. Again when he’d stopped for a tankard of ale.

“Oh, aye, we’re all Langlinais men,” one man said. “All born and bred in the town. And most of our men serve with the earl.”

When he wished a good day to an old woman, she smiled back at him. A few moments of conversation gleaned him the information about Harrington Court and the Earl of Langlinais. More knowledge than he needed but given in exchange for a few words of kindness.

General Penroth would be pleased.

Chapter 13

B
etty sent one of the maids to the place Stephen had selected for their meal with a cloth, a bottle of ale, and a bowl of fruit. She filled a platter with cheeses and crusty bread, covered it with a napkin, and would have delivered it herself if Ned had not caught her hand as she walked through the kitchen.

“You can leave by that door when you’re finished,” he said, motioning over his shoulder to Anne. His blue eyes twinkled at her, even as he handed Anne the platter.

The wrinkles around his eyes spoke of years of labor in the sun. The hair on his head was graying and sparse. But it was his smile that lingered with her as she crossed the room and opened the door. That and Betty’s laughter.

It was a soft sound, one that made her smile. Even during times of war, life went on. Smiles and laughter, joy, and hope. They were never completely extinguished.

Anne placed the platter on the cloth and looked at the scene below her. Langlinais was touched with the sun, the yellowing brick of it making it appear almost golden in the light.

Her legs curled to the side, her drawing board beside her. She was rarely without it. Her sketches were more than a way of occupying time. In her work she put all of the emotion she could not voice, all of the confusion of her life. She’d drawn pictures of Ian when she was a child and made him a grotesque monster. Or on his knees begging her forgiveness. She’d drawn Hannah in many guises, her father going off to war. A hundred pictures that held precious moments and scenes she always wished to remember.

Perhaps one day she would draw Harrington Court. Or Stephen mounted on Faeren. But for now, she held those sketches only in her mind.

The day was what her mother would have called soft. A haze seemed to settle over the landscape, one of heat rather than mist. She leaned back against the trunk of a venerable oak.

She closed her eyes, listened to the sound of the wind as it ruffled through the leaves. A bird called, and the River Terne gurgled a greeting.

An afternoon of peace. It was almost possible to believe that there was no war.

She was not anxiously awaiting him, nor impatient at his absence. Instead, she was asleep, an expression on her face of utter rest. Her cheek was pressed against the bark of the tree, a rough embrace he thought. He sat beside her as quietly as he could, gently pulled her toward him.

Her cheek would bear the imprint of his shirt, instead.

He should have awakened her, but she herself had said that she’d gotten no sleep the night before. What had kept her awake? Dreams? Wishes? He realized that he wanted very much to know.

Her hand brushed against his chest, and he held it tenderly there.

It was a fine hand with long fingers. No calluses marred her skin, no blisters. Yet it was not a delicate appendage. Her palm was almost square, the thumb long. It was a capable hand, one of sturdiness, of competence. One of talent. He could as easily see it controlling the reins of a horse as he could holding a piece of charcoal between thumb and forefinger.