The Black Lyon (36 page)

He caught her hand as she swung to strike him. "You will not injure my babe by your headstrong movements. So, Amida told you she could not resist me after even the first look at me."

"I do not understand it now, either. I vow I am a fool to want such as you. You are a vile creature."

He kissed her forehead. "You are a liar and I shall see your sins confessed when we are home. Lyonene, now, here in this dark place, I will tell you something, but I say it once and once only. Hereafter I will deny it was ever said."

She moved her head back on his arm to look at him. Ranulf's honor was so strong that for him to say he might ever even consider a lie made her look at him in astonishment.

He ignored her. "There are times when I boast to you

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of my beauty, but it is only because you look at me so. I will tell you that you fair drool at the sight of me. Do not protest, for I know I look at you in a like manner. But what you see in me is not seen by other women. They think me too dark or ungraceful in my form."

"What you say is not true! What of the women at court? I had to fight them from you."

"Think you they would be so interested in me if I were not so rich? It is Dacre who is the ideal of beauty."

"Dacre! Why he is as the underbelly of a fish. His eyes and hair have no color, and he is so thin he casts little shadow, even."

"You seem to have spent overlong studying him."

She ignored him and ran the back of her fingers along the unshaved whiskers on his cheek. "And when he has three days' growth of a beard, from a distance he looks to be a girl; you can tell no difference. Know you that in certain lights your beard shows almost blue?"

He kissed her fingers and smiled at her. "It is good to know you feel so, but it does not change what I try to say to you. I wish, by this confession, to prevent what happened from occurring twice. Although you made a fool of yourself over me on the first day I saw you, other women do not."

"You lie again! I have never made a fool of myself over you."

"True, you have ever been calm near me, except mayhaps when you lusted after me when you bathed me, or threw yourself into my arms when I but showed you the longbow, or when ..."

"I acted no differently than I had with a hundred men. There! I have repaid you. Nay, I do lie, so do not glare at me more. And what of you? Do you marry all the women you meet after one day?"

Ranulf pulled her back to his shoulder. "I see I accomplished little. You are stubborn and will not heed my words. But listen well and remember this: You need never fear another woman languishing about for me after a few brief meetings."

"Then you say she could after a few longer meetings?"

Ranulf shrugged. "It has been known to happen. I am a most skillful lover."

"You are..."

He kissed her and stopped her words.

"I will not argue with you. Try only to remember my words when another woman, cleverer than you, seeks my gold."

"I cannot remember that I am to believe anyone thinks you ugly. Know you that your eyes have flecks of gold in them?" She felt him laugh against her.

"I concede. I am the most handsome of men and shall never deny it again."

"Ranulf," she began timidly. "H you say you are not as I see you, am I also different from the way you see me? You have said you think me beautiful."

Ranulf laughed again. "Alas, it is not so. I fear I heard of your beauty for three years before I ventured to Lorancourt. I vow I was no little curious about this girl who caused grown men to speak in whispered tones."

"This is true?"

"Aye, but I will not say more or repeat it You are too vain now, although I do not see how you can be when you are so fat you near push me from the bed."

"It is you who has made me fat. If you were slim and not such a great hulk of a man, I am sure I would not be burdened with a child half the size of that great horse of yours. So do not complain to me of discomfort, for it is my skin which is near to bursting with him."

Ranulf hugged her to him. "If I did not love you so well, you would be a bother to me with your sharp tongue." He felt her body stiffen against him. Puzzled, he asked, "What have I said that causes this?"

"You said that you loved me," she whispered.

"Certainly. I have said it often enough. Why should it cause you to pull away from me?"

"You have never said it."

He pulled her chin up. "Do you cry again? I understand this not at all. There has never been a day when I have not told you I love you."

"Nay, you have never done so. Amicia knew you had not and when I saw one of your letters that said you loved her..."

"Do not forget that I did not write those letters. But what you say cannot be true. If I have not said the words, then my actions have told you. Each time I make love to you I tell you I love you."

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Lyonene sniffed. "But you have made love to many women. Did you love them also?"

"Nay, I did not, but it is different with you." He stopped, for he realized she could not know how he was different with her.

"Have I not been kind?"

She worked to control the tears. "You are kind to all women."

"M on Dieu! You will drive me mad. There! I have just told you I love you."

"You curse me and that is to be taken as a declaration of love? Forgive me if I do not see your logic."

"I have no logic near you. What other woman causes me to lose my temper or makes me laugh? What other woman do I chase across the water or do I dress as a serf to rescue?"

"Your wife? Isabel whom you loved so well, that drove you near mad with grief when she died?"

Ranulf was stunned for a moment and could not speak.

"I know how you loved her. It is in your eyes when I mention her or the child. I think I cannot replace her in your heart."

"Do not continue," he said, his voice cold. "You misread me sorely if you think I bore that woman any love. I will tell you what I have told no other person and then you may judge for yourself what caused my grief."

He told the story of a young boy and a faithless wife without feeling, as if it belonged to another. The room was quiet and Lyonene could imagine the feelings that had been stored so long, the emotions that had changed a happy boy into the brooding man who had earned the name of Black Lion.

They lay together quietly when he had finished.

"That is why you raged so on our wedding night," Lyonene said quietly.

"I have never raged. I am ever good and kind."

"You were such a brute I would have left you had I not said vows to you."

"You said you hated me, but I did not believe you."

"Aye, you believed all, all Giles said. I am sometimes glad for that Welsh arrow, although the scar it left is most ugly."

"I love you, Lioness. I do not know how you could have doubted me. I love you more than myself or my yet to be son or...

Tighe."

Lyonene shook with laughter. "Now I know your words are true."

"I shall keep a list of your insults and repay you properly when this great belly of yours does not prevent me from getting within a cloth-yard of you."

"I shall look forward eagerly to your instruction." Her eyes sparkled in the dim light and she moved her leg over his thigh. He was too aware of her skin under his hands, the way her hair caressed her cheek.

"You are a cruel woman. Now be still. There is only a short while before dawn and I must tell you our plan to remove you from this place." His hand was on her stomach, and a sharp kick from the baby made him frown. "It has been long since the Round Table. Is not the babe due soon? Will you be able to travel?"

"It is a full half-month before he will be born, I am sure."

"That is soon. M ayhaps we should wait until after his birth. Your Alice will see to you."

"And then Lady M argaret may decide to move me elsewhere, or other mishaps. I would not like to take a newborn babe into the cold air. Now he is warm and protected inside me. Alice says he lolls about upside down in a nest of liquid."

"We will go then, on the morrow. I wait for my men to come now."

"How did you find me?"

"It was not easy. We had to keep our secrecy, so it was spread about that I was at court, that I did not care about my lowly wife and would not pay the ransom. I am glad you did not hear that story or I am sure you would have believed it."

"Nay, I would not," she lied.

He gave her a suspicious look for her too-fierce disavowal. "Dacre's cousins and your father's have sent spies everywhere. No one thought to look here. This woman, this Lady M argaret, is known only for her lechery for young men. It was not thought she would dare to encourage my wrath."

Lyonene felt fear, as she always did when Ranulf became the knight who was feared by so many men.

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"But what caused you to look here?"

"Sainneville saw your lion belt."

"But the boy that I gave it to—they found him and hung him."

"And rightly so. He sold it and gave no thought to helping you. He made a mistake in selling it to one of my men. From there it was not so hard to find you. A few mugs of poor ale and these guards boasted of the lady they held, of the four guards ordered to kill her should any attempt be made to rescue her."

"How did you get in this room?" she asked, suddenly surprised that she had not asked it before.

Ranulf inclined his head to the shuttered window. "I but threw a rope around a crenel and lowered myself."

"But what of the guards atop the tower?"

Ranulf gave a half-smile. "Did you not know the Lady M argaret has hired four new knights for her crumbling castle? They are strong, virile men, a little too dark for her taste, but she overlooks that flaw."

"Your guard!"

"Aye." He chuckled. "Gilbert says the woman is most inventive in bed."

She ignored him. "You have been here long then. Why have you not posed as her knight and not as a serf?"

"The woman is somewhat clever. She allows no one near you but those four men and two of her knights. We were not sure it was you she held captive, so one of us had to get inside the hall. M y men are not so brave as to wear these stuffs." He plucked at the harsh wool. "Or to chop wood."

"I think I shall be forgiven all, but not that you had to lift an ax outside battle."

His look affirmed her opinion. "Now I must go, for it grows light soon and I do not wish to be seen so plainly against a stone wall. I came but to warn you and to tell you to make ready. There is no way to bar the door without someone outside hearing us.

M y men will come soon and then we will attack. Have clothes ready and whatever else you need."

"But, Ranulf," she cried, clinging to him. "What will you do? How will you take me from this place and not risk your life?"

"Do not do this. I have risked much already. Two of my men will come to your room before light and you must obey them in all they say. Do not do aught that is foolish. Do you heed my words?"

She could but nod.

"They will protect you while the rest of us see to your four guards. Now do not cry more." He rose and held out his arms to her and they clung together, his hands running over her nude back.

"You are even bigger than I had thought I can hardly reach around you."

"I fear my sweet days of being carried about are at an end."

He grinned at her and lifted her in his arms. She was embarrassed by her distorted form and sought to cover herself. He brushed her hands away. "Nay. You are a silly girl. It is my child who stretches you so. If you can carry him, I can at least look upon him."

He smiled into her eyes. "You are beautiful fat and beautiful thin. I think I would love you had you three heads." He kissed her mouth but drew away when she began to return his kiss with ardor.

"I must go." He lowered her to the bed and put the covers about her. "You must miss M alvoisin much," he said, sneering at the crude covers.

"I miss the master more. Ranulf," she murmured, her arms holding his face close, "I love you."

He kissed her cheek and then stood up, tall, powerful above her. "I have known it always, of course, but it is good to hear."

She smiled, knowing that his words hid his true feelings. It seemed that he was gone instantly, and she saw only a foot as he pulled himself up on the rope.

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She awoke slowly, groggily, unsure of her surroundings. She stretched one arm to reach for Ranulf, wanting his warmth close to her, the security of his nearness. Her eyes opened in bewilderment when her hand met only an empty coldness, and not her husband's warm flesh. Her situation came to her and she sat up, the cover clutched about her.

Alice looked up from her sewing to smile at her.

"It is late?" The maid's nod was affirmative. "You have let me sleep long." Alice merely smiled and looked down again at the patched woolen garment in her hands.

Lyonene stared at her thoughfully. "You know, do you not? I do not understand how, but you know."

Alice grinned at her, the shared secret obvious between them. The stout woman rose and brought clothing for her mistress.

All day they stayed in the room, glancing anxiously at the shuttered window. Late in the day Lady M argaret came.

"So, you do not wish to honor us this day with your presence? I am sure Sir M orell will miss seeing you."

"He does not often look at me, so I cannot know what you mean."

"He leaves this day to travel to England and see why this husband of yours does not send your ransom."

Lyonene smiled up at the older woman, her hand on her stomach, pressing lightly against the kicking child. "I had thought you were sure he had no use for me since he long ago went to court."

Lady M argaret frowned. "You seem confident this day. Did I not know you to be so well guarded, I might think you held some secret."

Lyonene smiled at her blandly. "It is the child. I think he comes soon. Surely you have known the placidity that comes to a woman just before she gives birth?"