The Shattered Rose (44 page)

Aline pushed away from the wall and away from him.
_:
"I think you just want an excuse to sail away and forget me. You like to travel, not stay at home. You fall into bed with every willing woman who crosses your path. You know every brothel in every town. You doubtless have wives scattered all around the world—"

With warrior swiftness, he seized her, covering her mouth with his hand. "You don't have to drive me away with silly words, Aline. Just tell me to go."

When he uncovered her mouth, she wailed, "I don't know!" and burst into tears on his chest.

There were no seats in the plain room, so he just settled on the floor with her in his lap until she'd cried herself out.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she sniffed, deeply mortified, but relishing being in his strong arms all the same.

He held her even closer, in a comforting embrace, not a lustful one. "I must have been mad to press you for an answer at such a time, love. Put it down to rash ardency."

She ventured a look up. "Are you? Ardent."

He moved his hips and she felt his ardency quite clearly.

"Mere lust," she muttered, hot-cheeked. "Do you really want to marry me, Raoul?"

"Yes."

"Why?" And she looked fully at him, needing the answer.

"Because," he said simply, "I've never met a woman who affects me quite as you do. I've been fond of many, I admit it, and even fancied myself in love a time or two. But I've never felt this way before. It's as if part of me would be lost if I leave you behind."

Aline stared at him, seeking a way to doubt him. It was a weighty burden to bear, being so important to another person. Of course he was as important to her. If he sailed away, she feared she'd be half alive for the rest of her days.

He rubbed his knuckles against her cheek. "I can wait, little one, until you know how you feel."

"I know how I feel," she grumbled. "I feel wretched! And lustful," she admitted. One of his beautifully muscled arms stretched in front of her, and she ran her hand along it, feeling the power and heat. "I really do feel lustful." She wriggled slightly to settle even closer to his body.

He gripped her hips to still them, but grinned. "That's a promising start."

"Hah!" She made herself stop playing with his arm and looked him in the eye. "Half the women you meet lust after you, Raoul de Jouray, and they don't love you."

"Only half?"

She thumped his chest and scrambled to her feet. He followed at his leisure, dusting off his clothes.

That gave her a moment to study him, which did nothing to cool her longings. Perhaps she was going to have to send him away, to never see him again, to never . . .

"If we made love," she suggested, cheeks heating, "then I'd know if it was just lust or not."

He raised a brow. "If we made love, my luscious grape, you'd be addicted for life."

"Oh, you . . . you . . . prideful cock!" Over his laughter, she demanded, "Is that enough, though, for the rest of our lives? To want to make love?"

He gave it careful thought. "If it is making love, yes. If it's just lust, no."

"How do we tell the difference without trying? Maybe I wouldn't like it at all—lust or love. Some women don't. Then I'd know I was supposed to be in the convent. . . ."

She was trying to find logical arguments, but the truth was that she was terrified that she would never know his body as she wanted to. Never see him naked again. Never lie skin to skin ...

She knew her face must be cherry-red.

""You'd like it," he said with quiet confidence. "My years of practice have to be worth something. But beg as you will, Aline, I have no intention of making love to you until we are sanctified by God."

At the word
beg
she hit out. "So, you're going to wait in celibacy until I make up my mind?"

And thus came, impulsively, to the heart of her problem. She would rather lose him for all time than share him with other women.

And the wretch didn't instantly promise to be faithful.

He thought about it.

Aline turned and fled the room.

* * * * *

When Galeran emerged from Jehanne's room to arrange to get his party back to Hugo's house, he found Raoul already had the matter in hand. "The king's stables have provided extra horses. Your father has his own."

Galeran eyed his friend, detecting something close to ill humor in him, but now was hardly the time to ask about it. He wanted Jehanne safely back at Hugo's house before he even thought about other matters. He'd rather have her safely back at Heywood, but since people couldn't fly, and she couldn't travel, that was out of the question.

Jehanne wore Aline's tunic over her ruined clothes, and when she walked out and mounted the mother superior's jennet with the help of a mounting block, no one would have thought she was in great pain. But Galeran could tell the effort it was to preserve her pride in that way.

He smiled with fierce joy at her courage.

Being a large body of riders, they pushed easily through the crowds and out into the streets, but then had to fight their way slowly against the human tide all the way to Corser Street.

Hugo and Mary were delighted to play host to the mighty William of Brome, but their house was now even more crowded than before. Since their hosts also wanted an account of all their adventures—as well as details about the king's looks, his clothes and apartments, not to mention the wines he drank!—it was evening before Galeran had a chance to speak privately to Raoul.

In the meantime, however, he hadn't missed the fact that Aline also looked tense. Galeran feared his obsession with Jehanne's problems had allowed these two to be foolish. In the end, he invited his friend out into the street, where they weren't alone, but had some privacy amid the uncaring passersby.

"Is something the matter?" Galeran asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"Raoul, don't spar with me. What's happened between you and Aline?"

Raoul gave a sharp, humorless laugh. "Absolutely nothing. Which is probably the problem."

Galeran leaned back against a hogshead that was waiting to be rolled into the warehouse. "You can hardly have expected Aline to be a candidate for a pleasure bout."

A startling anger flashed through Raoul's eyes. "Do you think so little of me?"

Galeran raised a hand. "Pax, friend But what do you want, and what is the problem?"

It seemed as if Raoul had some trouble putting the words together, but then he said, "I want Aline as my wife. The trouble is that she has again said no."

"Really?" Galeran might have been obsessed with his own affairs in recent weeks, but he didn't think he'd been mistaken in the bright sparks dancing between Raoul and Aline. "You did make it clear what you were offering, didn't you?"

"Ha! Entirely clear. It was the fair lady herself who proposed an unblessed romp. She wanted to test the blade before she purchased it."

Galeran was hard pressed not to chuckle. "You must have unsettled her mightily, then. A few weeks ago she never would have suggested such a thing."

"I've deliberately unsettled her, thinking she'd fall neatly into my arms like a plum loosened on the branch. But no. The women of your wife's family do nothing in the normal way."

"One becomes accustomed. And there are compensations."

Raoul paced restlessly in front of the vintner's house, the passersby keeping well out of the way of such a tall and frowning warrior. "I would be delighted to become accustomed, but how? I offered her marriage, and she wanted me to live in Northumbria. You know that's impossible."

"You'd shiver to death."

Raoul sent him a scathing glance. "More to the point, I have property and responsibility elsewhere. I offered to give her a year to make up her mind—and that stretched my nobility and restraint to its limit—and she proposed a test of the wares!"

"Perhaps that is the best idea."

"Test the wares?"

"Give her time."

"I don't dare." Raoul looked down the street, though Galeran suspected that he wasn't seeing much. "I daren't risk returning to find she's taken her nun's vows. Or married another now that I've whetted her appetite."

"She wouldn't do that."

"Women are fiendishly unpredictable. I've broken down her walls. I can't leave her now that she's vulnerable."

Before Galeran could ask an explanation of that, Raoul looked him in the eye and said, "I won't lose her, Galeran. I'll abduct her if necessary."

"I'd have to stop you."

"I'd try to make sure you didn't have the chance." But, his stance said silently, if it comes to blood, so be it.

Was this whole tangled affair going to end at sword's point after all? Not if Galeran could help it. He hadn't come through the war to lose all in a minor skirmish of the aftermath. "Why did she refuse you?"

"Some nonsense about my fidelity, and about traveling abroad."

"Hardly nonsense. Fidelity has not been your way to date. And would you rather have a wife who'd throw her common sense to the wind at the first touch of desire?"

Raoul grinned. "Sometimes, yes."

Galeran shared the smile. "Indeed. But it's no easy matter for some people to leave their home to live in a strange land. A girl like Aline, even if she had planned to marry, never planned to do such a thing. She would have married a man from a nearby estate."

"There's no choice in it, though. I've enjoyed traveling, but I've always intended to settle on my land in the Guyenne."

"Perhaps Aline would not care for the Guyenne."

"A person would have to be mad not to love the Guyenne."

"If people loved only the most pleasing corners of God's earth, we'd be in a sorry state. My friend, I think you have wooed and won Aline's heart, but you will not woo her out of her common sense. You'll have convince her head that she will be safe and happy in this strange soil, far from her family and friends, alone in times of trouble."

"She will not be alone. ..."

"You must convince her of that."

Raoul exclaimed, "Christ's crown, if only I were a better liar!"

"What?"

Suddenly rueful, Raoul said, "She asked me if I would be faithful to her while she made up her mind."

"You said no?" Galeran could hardly believe it.

"I didn't say anything. I was trying to be honest, Galeran! I was giving it careful thought. I haven't been celibate for a year since I first had a woman, and I had no intention of making a promise I could not keep. She didn't wait to hear."

"Can you make that vow now?"

Almost as if in pain, Raoul said, "If it's her price, yes."

Galeran shook his head, pushing off the cask. "It's not that simple. She has to trust you with her life. Almost literally. I suggest you put your mind to convincing her, for I assure you, she's not leaving England unless she goes willingly."

* * * * *

Jehanne, propped up on cushions so she could lie on her front without pressing on her sensitive breasts, listened to Aline relate her adventures during her escape without actually mentioning Raoul de Jouray except in passing.

"You spent the night together in a bed?" Jehanne asked. It was a deduction, since Aline hadn't actually said as much.

"I slept!" Aline snapped.

"I'm sure you did."

"He didn't do anything . . . Well, almost nothing . . . He's amazingly restrained."

Jehanne worked at keeping a straight face. "You sound almost disappointed."

"Of course I'm not." Aline paced backward and forward,

skirts swishing. "It's nice to know he can sometimes keep his weapon in its sheath."

"He seems to have acted competently in keeping you safe and getting into the convent. And I understand he spoke for me before the king."

Aline stopped. "I never said he wasn't competent."

"True. So, what holds you back from him?"

"Holds me back?" Aline asked with spurious puzzlement.

"If I'm any judge at all, the man loves you and wants to marry you. And yet you do not have the look of a happy couple."

"Would you marry half a world away?" Aline challenged.

"I'd follow Galeran beyond the ends of the earth, to heaven or hell itself."

""Yes, well . . . Would you have done that when you'd scarce known him a month?"

Jehanne laughed. "No, you have me there. But we were very young." Yet Aline was young, Jehanne thought. It was easy to forget that she was only eighteen and had lived, until recently, a protected life. "Perhaps it is wiser to wait."

"Wait! But what's the point in waiting? If he comes back in a year, will I know him any better?"

"You may know your heart better. It's been an intense time and he's tempting enough. But sometimes the fiery interest fades down to cinders with a little time and distance. Once, you know," she added with a grimace, "I thought Raymond of Lowick stood only one rung below God."

Aline laughed at that. "But there's no comparison between Raymond and Raoul." She picked up the salve pot, looking at it as if she'd never seen it before. "You're probably right, though, that Raoul's interest in me will fade with a little time and distance. I suppose I'd be doing him a kindness to send him away."

"Aline, I was talking about you! Raoul is older, and a great deal more experienced. I doubt he'll change as easily."

"If he loves me at all ., ."

"Would a man like that want to marry unless he loved? I presume he did ask for your hand in marriage."

"Oh, yes." Aline gave in. She put down the pot and recounted the whole of her conversation with Raoul.

Jehanne groaned at the end. "But you know, cousin, when a man like that makes such a snarl of it, it is a sign of something."

* * * * *

By the next day, Jehanne could sit up, and even move around a little without too much pain. As she worked her way along the narrow corridor to the hall at one end of the building, however, she took uncharitable satisfaction from the notion that Bishop Flambard had received a full cycle of the rod. Perhaps Galeran could find the grace to forgive the man, but she couldn't. It wasn't the beating she held against him, but the harm he had tried to do to her family.