Sanctuary of Roses (10 page)

“If you wish to jump, the deed would be
better done on the east side of the wall,” he commented, stepping
toward her. “There, the hill drops away to the cliffs of the sea.
Rocks and the surf would make certain that the task would be
complete, rather than leaving one a crippled mess.”

“I would not jump,” Madelyne replied, all
too aware of the leaping of her pulse as he came to stand beside
her. “’Tis a mortal sin.”

He looked at her for a moment, his plain,
sculpted features made almost handsome by the half-light. Then, his
lips—full, wide and hard—curved into the faintest of smirks. “Ah,
aye. How foolish of me to forget. One can wish for death, can court
it in battle or elsewhere—but one cannot take matters into one’s
own hands and expect salvation.”

Madelyne did not know how to respond to
those words, for she sensed another layer to them—an almost
melancholy sentiment. Instead, she continued to stare out over the
darkening land.

Mal Verne stood next to her, unspeaking. Yet
she was as aware of his every breath as she was of her own pulse
beating through her veins. His hand rested on the waist-high stone,
and she saw how long and thick his fingers were, how the veins and
tendons and scars sculpted the back of it. How solid his wrist
looked next to her own dainty one.

He broke the silence at last. “If you did
not climb up here to elude Jube for the purpose of taking matters
into your own hands and jumping, what was it that prompted you to
come out in the midst of a gathering storm?”

Madelyne looked at the lightning that
flashed in the north, closer now, then down again at her own hand
resting next to his on the wall. Slim and pale, her fingers took up
barely a third of the width of one stone brick, while his hand
covered nearly the whole of one. A flash of memory caught her by
surprise—an image of a hand, powerful and wide as Mal Verne’s,
raised in violence and darkness.

The remembrance was so strong that she took
an involuntary step backward, her hand pulling to her chest to
clutch at her cloak. He turned his head quickly to look at her,
question and something akin to concern flashing in his eyes. “What
is it?”

Feeling foolish at her reaction to a mere
memory, Madelyne forced a smile and waved her action away. “’Twas
naught but a night beetle that flew in my face,” she replied
lightly. “It startled me.”

Mal Verne looked at her curiously for a
moment, then relented and allowed her out from under his delving
stare when he turned to look back toward the storm. “May I escort
you below to your chamber now, my lady? The lightning draws near
and you are at risk at this height.”

Madelyne arched one brow but continued to
look out over the land. “And what happened to my own personal
guard, Jube? Is that not his duty, my lord?”

“I dismissed Jube, sending him to take his
place out side of your chamber door.” Mal Verne’s voice rumbled
low, not unlike the thunder echoing in the distance. “If you had
planned to end your life thus, I preferred to be the one to witness
it—as you are under my care in the name of the king.” The stress on
those last words was not lost on Madelyne. In that moment, she
realized she believed him when he claimed he acted in the king’s
name.

And, she also knew the odd disappointment
that ’twas not his desire to seek her company that had led Mal
Verne to find her on the wall. “Very well, then, my lord.” She
turned abruptly to take his arm and found his stare fixed on her in
such a way that caused her breath to hitch in her throat. For a
moment, he was unmoving and she halted, confused and riddled with
an odd heaviness in her limbs.

The moment froze—thunder crashed behind her,
lightning zinged through the clouds, the smell of rain was in the
air, and the brick felt rough and hard beneath her fingers—as he
reached to touch her. His hand hovered in mid-air for a second, as
if he hesitated, then rested warm and heavy on top of her head. His
fingers smoothed over the side of her skull, bumping over one thick
braid, and slid along the heavy tresses that were tucked under her
cloak.

Madelyne hardly dared breathe. No one had
touched her that way…ever. Certainly not a man. Certainly not the
man to whom she now played hostage. Her heart thumped madly, but
for all of that…nay, she was not truly alarmed. Why did he not
frighten her—this large, stony, gruff man?

“You have beautiful hair,” he murmured in
the same low, rumbly voice he’d used a moment earlier. He stepped
toward her, his presence surrounding Madelyne like a cape. She felt
the wall behind her and looked up into his eyes, inscrutable in the
dimness. Her heart thundered in her chest and her mouth dried as
the heaviness of his gaze sent heat coursing through her.

Then, suddenly, it was as if something
snapped. He fell back, his hand slamming to his side, and the
urgency gone from his gaze. “’Twould have been a sin had you cut
it.” His words were fact of the matter, and made in a sharp, almost
cutting voice. “Now, lady, may I take you below where you will be
protected from the storm?”

Her head spinning, and her face warm with
the flush of mortification, Madelyne could do naught but nod.
Disdaining his proffered arm, she turned her back to him and,
clutching a handful of skirt, started toward the stairs.

* * *

’Twas just as well that he did not sleep
well that night, Gavin would realize later with some relief.

This first night back in his own chambers
should have been one of comfort and rest. For the first time in
many a moon, he was not forced to unroll a traveling pallet onto
cold, hard ground, or to sleep on a lumpy, hay-filled pallet in a
chamber he shared with a myriad of other snorting, snoring,
snuffling men.

Rosa had bathed him and would have serviced
him further had he wished, but Gavin declined, desiring only his
own company. He stood at the window slit, clad in his chausses with
loosed cross garters, watching the lightning brighten the sky as if
it were midday. The wall beneath his fingers shuddered as thunder
crashed above.

Mayhap he should have availed himself of
Rosa’s offer, else he would not have made such a fool of himself
upon the wall with Lady Madelyne…and likely he would be sleeping
soundly instead of watching the rain trail off from its brief,
thrashing downpour.

Clean wetness filled the air, tingeing his
nostrils and cooling his bare chest as he leaned on the bottom of
the arrow slit and looked out over his domain. Yet, in the
darkness, he could see only the perfect oval of the nun’s fair
face, upturned to him with wide eyes, darkened by the night
shadows. And her lips…
Jesù
…they were full and wide—made for
kissing, he’d thought in one absurd moment before he’d remembered
who she was.

Even now, his own mouth twisted in disgust.
Madelyne was the daughter of his dearest enemy, as well as a woman
prepared to embrace religious life. She could have no idea that her
innocent beauty was enough to make a man hot with desire…even a man
who had not touched a woman other than the occasional whore or
serving wench for seven years.

Gavin pushed himself away from the window
and folded his arms over his chest, pacing to the fireplace to
stoke up the smoldering blaze. The sooner he turned the woman over
to Henry, the better off he would be.

He poked at the charred logs that glowed
with orange embers, releasing sparks and tiny tongues of flame. The
short rainstorm had cooled the summer night and his chamber had
become chill, yet he was not yet ready to seek the warmth of his
bed.

When he received notification of where the
royal court would be stopping for the next months, he would pack up
his guest—and her erstwhile maid—and take them to Henry himself.
And then, he would never have to see the woman with her calm gray
eyes again.

The king would likely make her a royal ward,
keeping her under his care or that of the queen in order to control
the actions of Fantin de Belgrume. It was well-known of de Belgrume
that he had greatly mourned the loss of his daughter and wife, and
verily he would be more easily brought to heel knowing that his
daughter yet lived. Mayhap the king might even find a way to
relieve de Belgrume of his fiefdom, thereby putting an end to the
madman’s resources.

Gavin nodded to himself and replaced the
long metal pole he’d used to tease the fire, refusing to give
credence to the niggling guilt at the back of his mind. She would
be better off at court, he told himself, ignoring the echo of her
own explanation as to why life in the abbey afforded her more
freedom. A woman such as she—beautiful, with lands aplenty through
her father—was not meant to while herself away in an abbey.

Peste!
He stalked over to the window
again. What did he care of her future? He had a task to do—to bring
her father under control—and the king expected nothing less of him
to do so. If he felt guilt by taking her from the solace of Lock
Rose Abbey, that was merely a sign of his own weakness and an
uncontrollable factor in his doing his duty.

He stared unseeing over the world below,
catching out of the corner of his eye the impression of dawn
starting to lighten the sky. The cool tang of rain-filled air had
evaporated, to be replaced by a bitter acridity of smoke. Gavin
sniffed, frowning, then turned his attention to the town below.

Where the darkness should have yielded only
the faint gray outlines of cottages and huts, a yellow glow
flickered on the west side of the town.

* * *

By the time Gavin reached the village,
crowds of peasants and men-at-arms had gathered in the streets.
Three of buildings were ablaze, and sparks and flames leapt and
jumped with such vigor on the gusty wind that ’twas only a matter
of time until the next buildings caught afire. Though dawn was
beginning to give natural light to the sky, shadows danced eerily
over the faces of women and children who stood to one side of the
street, watching as the men threw bucket after bucket of water onto
the flames.

Soot and black smoke whorled from the
buildings, mingling with the moist air and choking the bystanders
and fire fighters. Gavin pushed his way through the crowds of
people to join his men near the blaze, quickly taking a place at
the front of a line that passed the leather buckets to and from the
town well.

Clem stood next to him, handing him dripping
pail after dripping pail. He swiped at his sweating face with a
thick arm, smearing black ash over his cheek and temple.

“’Twas lightning struck the house here,” he
told Gavin as he whirled to shove a full bucket into his lord’s
middle. He turned away to get another, then spun back to take the
empty and pass on the full. “It must have smoldered below the roof
for some time, else—” He turned away again, then back, “the rain
would have put it out.”

Gavin grunted in agreement, forbearing to
point out that the brevity of the storm, fierce as it was, had
likely contributed. The thatched roofs of the peasant homes were
particularly susceptible to such dangers. It had happened more than
once in this village alone—lightning had struck, passing through
the roof into a house, setting the interior ablaze before anyone
realized it.

“Did all get out safely?” he asked Clem,
slamming an empty bucket into the man’s hand.

“Aye, I believe so…although—” He turned back
as Gavin turned toward the fire in the rhythm they had established,
then they returned face to face. “Robert the Cooper has a bad
burn.”

A sudden wind blustered, sending ash and
smoke billowing into the faces of the fire fighters. Gavin ducked,
holding up an arm to ward off the black fog. Something stung him
fiercely on the shoulder, and he slapped a hand there to brush away
the sparks that landed on his bare skin. He cursed himself for
neglecting to pull on a
sherte
before leaving the keep, but
there was no time to stop now.

“This way!” A voice shouted, and the mass of
fire fighters stumbled, shifting several steps in one direction to
move out of the wind’s changed path.

The buckets kept coming, but the wind would
not allow them to gain an advantage. Soon, the walls of the first
building collapsed inward, sending up a shower of sparks and ash. A
spray of orange coals scattered over Gavin, stinging like tiny
needles that he didn’t have the time to brush away. Already, a
fourth building was beginning to smoke in the hay-like thatch of
the roof.

With a shout that had grown rough because of
the sooty air, Gavin pointed at the coil of smoke coming from the
building. He beckoned for two of the lines of bucket-passers to
turn their attention to this new danger, then, with a quick nod to
Clem, he slipped out of his own position and started toward the
group of women and children.

Pointing to the wife of the smith, he said,
“You—Sally—get you those children who are old enough, and whatever
women can be spared from watching the young ones, and throw water
on this house next. If we have God’s luck, we shall keep it from
spreading further.”

He was just about to return to his place in
line when an agonized scream reached his ears.

He turned to see a woman running toward the
fourth of the burning buildings. “My son! Barden! My son!” She
would have dashed into the blaze had Gavin not thrown out an arm
and caught her around the waist.

When she looked up and recognized him, even
that did not stop her from struggling to get free. “My lord! My
son’s home! My son and his wife!” she shrieked—a mournful, wailing
cry that tore at Gavin’s heart. “I cannot find them! They are
burning!”

“They are there?” he asked, looking at the
building, gauging how badly it was burning within. His glance
flickered over the mass of people that worked as one body, passing
buckets and tossing water. It was unlikely that Barden and his wife
had not been awakened by the activity. Thus, if they were within
the house, they were most certainly dead. “Stay you here.” He
started toward the house.