The Mistress Of Normandy (4 page)

Thrusting aside the thought, he moved restlessly in the saddle and waved two of his men toward the south. The hoofmarks on the forest floor were scattered; doubtless the brigands had separated. Rand didn’t mind riding alone. The events of the past few weeks had given him a restless energy, a coiled strength. He’d gladly unleash that power on brigands who robbed old men, widows, and orphans.

As he rode beneath the grayish branches of poplars, he noticed a carved stone marker in the weeds. A single stylized flower—the fleur-de-lis—rose above a wavy pattern. With a jolt, he recognized the device of Bois-Long. Burningly curious, he tethered his horse and approached on foot.

Skirting a cluster of half-timbered peasants’ dwellings and farm buildings, he walked toward the river until the twin stone towers of the castle barbican reared before him.

He stifled a gasp of admiration. Thick walls, crowned by finials, encompassed a keep of solid beauty, with slender round towers and tall windows, a cruciform chapel, an iron-toothed portcullis beneath the barbican.

Stone creatures of whimsy glared from the gunports, griffins and gorgons’ heads defying all comers to breach the walls they guarded. Like an islet formed by man, the château sat surrounded by water. The deep river coursed in front, while a moat curved around the back, which faced north. A long causeway—the structure Henry so coveted—spanned the Somme.

This is my home, thought Rand. King Henry has given me this; I need only be bold enough to take it. But not yet, he cautioned himself, moving back toward the woods. There is carelessness in haste.

He passed brakes of willows, stands of twisted oaks, and his thoughts drifted back to his bride. Belliane, the Demoiselle de Bois-Long. The lioness in her den. Rand smiled away the notion. He had the might of England and the right of seisin behind him. How could she possibly oppose him?

* * *

Her weaponry concealed beneath a long brown cloak, Lianna slipped beneath the archway of the barbican. Jufroy, who guarded the river gate, inclined his head.

“Out for a walk, my lady?”

She paused, nodded.

“I should think you’d stay hard by your husband.”

I’d sooner stay hard by a serpent, she thought. “Lazare is out riding again with the reeve.”

“Don’t stray far, my lady. We’ve had word
les écorcheurs
hit a coastal village yesterday.”

Lianna intended to go very far indeed, but saw no need to worry Jufroy. “Then they will be long gone. Besides, no brigands dare approach Bois-Long. Not with our new cannons on their rotating carriages. They’ll blow any intruders to Calais.”

Jufroy grunted and stared straight ahead at the causeway stretching across the river. Lianna realized she had stung the sentry’s pride by implying that the cannon, not the valor of the men-at-arms, was responsible for the impregnable status of Bois-Long. She stepped toward him. “A cannon is useless without strong men and quick minds to put it to use.”

Jufroy’s expression softened. “Have a care on your foray.”

As always, Lianna crossed the causeway without looking down. To look down was to see the dark shimmer of water between the planks, to feel the dizzy nausea of unconquerable fear. She concentrated instead on the solidity of the thick timber beneath her feet and the sound of her wooden sabots clunking against the planks.

An hour’s walk brought her to the very heart of the manor lands, far enough from the château to test her new weapon in private. The castle folk feared the cannons; surely this gun would send them shrieking. Another hour’s walk would bring her to Eu, where the Englishmen were doubtless billeting themselves among the townspeople. Lianna shivered. No need to venture there. The usurping baron would find her soon enough. She clenched her hand around the gun. She would be ready.

Pulling off her cloak and untying her apron, heavy with bags of powder and shot, she smiled. Chiang had cast the handgun for her as a wedding gift. Chiang alone understood her fascination with gunnery and, like her, believed that firepower in the right hands was the ultimate defense.

She hefted the wooden shaft and curved her fingers around the brass barrel. A bit of Chiang’s artistic whimsy, a tiny brass lily, stood over the touchhole. She ran her hand over the slim, angled rod of the gunlock, then murmured the customary blessing for a gun.
“Eler Elphat Sebastian non sit Emanuel benedicite.”

Turning, she spied a plump leveret some yards distant. The rabbit, heedless of Lianna’s presence, nosed idly among a stand of sweetbriar. A live target. The perfect test for the efficacy of her gun. If Longwood proved difficult, it would behoove her to learn to use it well.

She made the sign of the cross over a small lead ball and fitted it into the barrel. Remembering Chiang’s instructions, she crumbled a cake of corned powder into the removable breech. The charge seemed too meager, so she added more, then lit a slow match of tow soaked in Peter’s salt. Fitting the smoking match into the end of the lock, she sank down on one knee and laid the shaft over her shoulder.

Blinking against the acrid smoke, she sighted down the stock at her quarry, her hand tensing. Steady, she told herself. A gun is useless in nervous hands. She closed one eye, drew a deep breath, let exactly half of it escape her, and slowly, steadily, began pressing on the lock.

“Poachers do favor the crossbow,
pucelle,
because it has the advantage of silence,” said a whisper-soft voice behind her.

Surprised beyond caution, Lianna let her hand clutch involuntarily around the lock. The slow match delved into the firing pan.

The ear-splitting explosion deafened her and seared her nostrils with the smell of overheated sulfur. The shaft of the gun recoiled violently, catapulting her backward against something large, warm...and breathing.

Furious at her stupidity in overloading the charge, she scrambled away on hands and knees, prepared to vent her rage on the man-at-arms who’d dared follow her from the château.

She turned.

He smiled.

The impact of her gape-mouthed surprise and his devastating smile sapped her will to rise. Bracing her hands behind her, she stared upward, her astonished gaze traveling a seemingly endless length of broad, blond man.

He picked up the gun, set it aside, and spoke. She couldn’t hear him for the ringing in her ears. Her first thought, if something so absurd could be termed a thought, was that she’d happened upon a mythical Norse deity, a golden forest divinity returned from days of old. For surely a body of such massive power, a face of such sheer beauty, could not possibly be human.

The vision extended a big, squarish hand. Lianna shrank back, afraid that if she touched him, he’d shimmer away like a will-o’-the-wisp from the marshes. His lips were moving; still she could not hear. He cocked his head to one side, his expression mild, quizzical, and perhaps a little amused.

This was no vengeful warrior god from the North, but a more forgiving creature. An angel, perhaps...no, an archangel, for surely only one of the very highest rank could be favored with that clean, powerful bone structure, the chaste innocence that imbued his beautiful smiling mouth and eyes with such heavenly character.

His eyes were not simply green, she noted wildly, but the pure color of a new leaf shot through by sunlight. In their depths she perceived the pain and devotion of the saints in the colored windows of a chapel.

He spoke again, and this time she heard: “Don’t be afraid of me.” He reached down, grasped her by the waist, and pulled her effortlessly to her feet.

In that instant she realized her reckless flight of fantasy for what it was. His hold was firm, his voice a rich velvet ripple over her scattered senses. It was a man’s body pressing against hers, a man’s voice caressing her ears.

Alarmed, she pulled back. “Who are you?”

He hesitated, just for the upbeat of her heart. “Rand,” he said simply. “And you,
pucelle?
”

She, too, hesitated.
Pucelle,
he called her. A maid. What would this man say if he knew he was speaking to the Demoiselle de Bois-Long? If he were a brigand, he’d consider her a valuable hostage. And if he were an Englishman... She dismissed the notion. The stranger’s French was not corrupted by the broad, flat tones of a foreigner.

Absently she tapped her chin. The novelty of anonymity intrigued her. The necessity of it, because Lazare had destroyed any trust she might have in a stranger, made her say only, “Lianna.”

“Your face is completely black, Lianna.”

Vaguely annoyed at the mixture of humor and censure dancing in his leaf-green eyes, she lifted her hand, touched her cheek, and looked at her fingertips. Black as soot. At least the concealing powder hid the hot blush pouring into her cheeks.

“I...mismeasured the charge,” she said.

“So it seems.” He took her hands and drew her down to sit on a bed of dry bracken. “I know little of such things.”

“
Nom de Dieu,
but I do,” she said with self-contempt. “I should have trusted the precision of science instead of my own eyes.”

“
Alors, pucelle,
how does one so fair possess a knowledge so deadly?”

“My...father was a gunner. He indulged my interest.”

He frowned at the blackened gun. “Then your father was a fool.”

She thrust up her chin but resisted the urge to defend her father and sink deeper into untruths.

“Hold still,” he said. “I’ll clean you off.”

She was never one to obey orders, but, unrecovered from the shock of the explosion and the surprise of meeting this mesmerizing stranger, she sat unmoving. He reached beneath his mail shirt, pulled out a small cloth bundle, and unwrapped a loaf of bread. With the cloth, he began cleansing her face. His light, gentle strokes felt soothing, but the odd intimacy of the gesture revived her anger.

“Why did you sneak up on me? You ruined my aim.”

“That,” he said, brushing her chin, “was my intent. The leveret was a doe, and nursing.”

She scowled. “How could you tell that?”

“Her shape. She was not as plump as she looked, only appeared so because her dugs were full.”

Lianna prayed he’d not yet revealed enough of her face to discern her new blush.

“You wouldn’t have wished to slay a nursing mother, would you?”

“Of course not. I just hadn’t thought of it.”

He held out the loaf to her. “Bread?”

“Thank you, no. I wasn’t hunting my dinner.”

“Blood sport, then?” he asked, mildly accusing.

“
Nom de Dieu,
I am not a wanton killer. I merely wished to test my gun on a moving target.”

“I doubt Mistress Rabbit would have appreciated the difference.”

She shrugged. “I probably would have missed anyway. My aim is imprecise, the weapon passing crude.”

Like a parent wiping away a child’s tear, he daubed the delicate flesh beneath her left eye. “Your eyes are silver,
pucelle.
”

“Gray.”

“Silver, like the underside of a cloud at dawn.”

“Gray, like the stone walls of a keep during a siege.”

“Argue not,
pucelle.
I’ve a sense about such things. Stone does not capture the light and reflect it, while your eyes—” he cleansed beneath her right one “—most assuredly do.”

* * *

Bit by bit, Rand uncovered the face beneath the soot. As he worked, his amazement and fascination grew like a bud warmed by the sun. He’d come to survey the area for brigands and have a glimpse of his barony. Instead he’d found a beautiful girl and a deadly weapon, two surprises and one of them curiously welcome.

Moving aside a pale lock of hair, he brushed the last of the soot from her cheeks. Black dust clung stubbornly to her brows and lashes, but at last her face was revealed to him. The cloth dropped from his fingers as he stared.

Sitting in the nest of her blue homespun surcoat, she stared back with huge, unblinking silver eyes. Her face was a delicate, pale oval shaped by fragile bones and small, fine features. Despite a lingering shadow of soot, he could discern that her skin was the ivory of a lily, with the shade of apple blossoms at her cheeks and lips. His body quickened at the sight.

An unexpected thunderbolt of awareness struck him. He desired this girl; he burned for her with a yearning Jussie had never aroused. Calling up all the strength of his vow of chastity, he resisted the idea that they were alone, unchaperoned, far from anyone else.

It was not so much her maidenly beauty that called to him, but the expressiveness in her features. Her eyes held a deep intelligence yet seemed haunted by shadows in their silver depths. Her mouth was full and firm, yet the way she worried her lower lip with her small white teeth hinted at vulnerability.

Years of celibacy faded beneath the onslaught of vivid desire. Rand laid his big hands on her cheeks, letting his thumbs skim in slow, gentle circles. “I’ve never seen a face like yours before, Lianna,” he said softly. “At least not while I was awake.”

Alarm flared in her quicksilver eyes. She drew back. “You are not from around here. You speak like a Gascon.”

He smiled. His father’s legacy. “So I am a Gascon, at least part of me is. And you
are
from around here. You speak like a Norman.”

“Are you a brigand? Do you burn, pillage, and rape?”

He chuckled. “Preferably not in that order. Are you a poacher?”

She stiffened. “Certainly not. I’ve every right to hunt the lands of Bois-Long.”

Suspicion shot through Rand. “You hail from Bois-Long?”

“I do.”

Sweet lamb of God, Rand mused, she’s from Longwood. He had to duck his head to hide a flash of curiosity. A gunner’s daughter, she’d said, yet she’d have to be of noble birth to hunt. Despite her homespun garb, her speech and manners marked her as no one’s servant.

“Your father was a gunner,” he said slowly. “Was he also a man of rank?”

“No.” She eyed him warily.

“You’re well spoken.”

“I am well schooled.”

“What position do you hold at Bois-Long?”

“I am...companion to the chatelaine.”