He wanted to bear her down into the softly rustling leaves that littered the floor of the hut. He wanted to rip away this rough barrier of cloth between them and press the length of his naked body against her softly pale wom-an's flesh. He wanted to touch her in all the secret, burning places he knew she yearned to be touched. Touch her with his hands, with his lips, with his tongue. Feel her long, slim legs wrap around his waist, holding him to her as he buried himself inside her. He wanted to make her his, his, forever.
His.
Except that, for them, there could be no forever. And if he made her his now, the future would hold nothing for either of them except unbearable heartache. Or death.
He knew it, and yet for one quivering, savage moment, he hovered on the edge, almost beyond stopping, his lips drifting down the white arch of her throat as she flung back her head. He heard the rush of her breath, hot and fast against his ear. Felt the rapid pounding of her heart beneath his splayed fingers as he cupped her bare, trembling breast. Cupped it, then let his hand slide away.
He kissed her hair, her ear—anything but her mouth. He didn't dare kiss her mouth. “Attica. Mon amante,” he murmured, his face buried in the soft curve of her neck. Beloved. His body shook with want and denial as he held her, his hands clenching in her hair. “We can't do this. We can't.”
She curled her hands around his wrists, her head turning until she was looking at him with wide, solemn eyes. “I love you,” she said, her lips trembling and tempting, oh so tempting. “Duty and honor may dictate my future. But I would have this moment.”
Sweet Jesus, he thought, staring into the luminous depths of her beautiful brown eyes. I'm only a man. Only a man … He felt his breath shudder in his chest, hurting him.
He cradled one of her hands in his, pressed a kiss to her palm. “I love you, Attica.” He curled his fingers around hers until her hand became a fist, hers inside of his. He felt her hand tremble within his grip, but he couldn't look at her, couldn't look at her beautiful, beloved face. “I love your spirit, your strength, your fierce and noble sense of honor. I love you in every way known to man.” He paused, working hard to get the words out. “Which means I love you too much to destroy your life by making love to your body now.”
“My life is already destroyed,” she whispered harshly.
“No.” He squeezed her hand, then let her go. “No,” he said again, backing away from her, away from the pain and longing he could see now in her face. “Not completely. But if we do this, it will be.”
The night wind sighed around them, ruffled the boyishly short curls that framed her face. “Then I would destroy it.”
“But don't you see?” He took another step back, then another. He was outside now, outside with the wind and the stars and all the lonely pain of his forever. “Don't you see?” he said again. “I love you too much to let you.”
He couldn't quite bring himself to turn around and leave her. He could only back away from her, one step at a time, until she was lost in the shadows of the night.
He spent the hours left until dawn in the lean-to where he'd stabled the horses. He sat with his spine pressed against one of the roughly peeled logs that framed the doorway, his head tilted back, his eyes half closed as he watched the gradual lightening of the sky in the east.
His desire for her burned like a fever in his blood, tormented him like a hot coal in the depths of his belly that left him restless, unable to sleep. Once, in that hour when birdsong fills the air and dawn sweetens the world, the need to go to her and hold her—just hold her—was so strong, he had to grip the log behind his head, his fingers digging in the soft wood to keep himself from rising and crossing the short distance that separated them. Because he knew that if he touched her now, he would never be able to stop with a simple touch.
He knew, as well, that he could not trust himself to be alone with her like that at night again, and that he would need to stay as far away from her during the day as their circumstances allowed. The knowledge that she would give herself freely to him only increased the pressure on him to keep it from happening. Not simply because, if his suspicions about her brother were correct, she might never forgive Damion for what he would have to do. But also because he knew, as she did not, the tragedy that could flow from an illicit love such as theirs.
They spent the next night in a forester's cottage, and the night after that in the guest house of an isolated monastery.
It didn't take Attica long to notice how careful Damion was not to touch her when they were alone during the day. Or the way that, when night began to fall, he always made certain there were other people around them.
With each day they moved into higher, wilder country, the fields of ripening hay and peas becoming more and more interspersed with tracts of dense virgin forest and more open bocage. Once, they sheltered beneath a ridge and watched two horsemen pick their way along the swift-flowing stream below. But they were too far away for Attica to be able to tell if they were her uncle's men or not.
The morning of the fourth day found them climbing a long, gentle slope covered with bracken and fern scattered with tall pink foxgloves and white marguerites. The sun shone golden and warm out of a soft blue sky, and they paused beside a gurgling brook to rest the horses and eat some of the honey cakes they'd brought from the last village.
“A day like this,” Attica said, smiling as she lifted her face to the gentle June sun, “when the air is so sweet with the scent of grass, and the larks are singing in the tops of the trees …” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, as if she could draw the magic of this moment into her very soul. “A day like this makes you realize what a joy it is simply to be alive. It's as if the whole world—as if God himself—were smiling. Do you feel it?”
She opened her eyes and turned her head to find him watching her. He lay sprawled on his side, facing her, one elbow bent beneath him, the other wrist resting slackly on his bent knee. And in his eyes flickered a raw, painful hunger he wasn't quite quick enough to hide.
She felt the smile slowly fade from her lips. The sun still poured over her and the larks still sang, but she was aware only of this fiercely beautiful man and of how desperately she wanted him. How much she wanted him in her life. Not just for this one memorable moment but for all the days and years that stretched out before her.
The warm mountain breeze eddied around them, ruffling the collar of his shirt where it shone white against the dark flesh of his neck. She ached with the desire to reach out, to touch him, to go to him now on this sun-kissed hillside and forget at least for a few, tender, stolen hours the unshakable call of duty and the bridegroom who awaited her at the end of her journey.
They stared at each other, and the wind gusted up stronger, carrying to them the distant scent of stale smoke mixed with the faint, unmistakable stench of death.
“What is it?” Attica asked as de Jarnac's head snapped around, his hand creeping almost unconsciously to his sword hilt.
“Mount up,” he said curtly, uncoiling from the grass in one lithe, controlled motion. “Quickly.”
They spurred their horses to the top of the hill, where a stand of mixed larch and ash grew thick enough to offer shelter. From there they could look down on what must once have been a prosperous village, nestled beside a rocky stream at one end of a broad valley patchworked with cultivated fields, lush pasturage, and orchards. Only now the fields were trampled and burned, the trees bare of fruit, the houses reduced to blackened rubble. The smell of burned thatch and charred flesh hung heavy in the air.
“Mother of God,” whispered Attica, her horrified gaze sliding over the smoke-hazed ruin of the valley. “Who has done this? Routiers?”
“No. This is the work of an army, Attica. An army on the march.”
She swung her head to look at him. His eyes had narrowed to thin slits, the powerful bones of his face standing out stark against his flesh as he stared down at the destruction before them. “The conference must have already collapsed,” h
e said, the big bay stallion shifting restlessly beneath him. “This is the result.”
“Philip did this? Philip and Richard?”
He nodded, gathering his reins.
She lifted her gaze to the horizon, but all she could see was desolation. The acrid stench of burnt wood stung her nostrils, making them quiver. “But … where is Henry?”
“I don't know.” He spurred his horse forward. “Let's go down and see what we can find out.”
They rode through an unearthly silence, filled only with the creak of their saddle leather, the thud of the horses’ hooves in the packed dirt of the road, and the buffeting of the warm wind. Even the birds seemed to have fallen silent.
They splashed across the ford at a canter. Beside the stream lay the smoking ruins of a mill, the fresh green banks of the gently lapping mill pond splattered with the white of spilt flour and the red of the miller's blood. Attica turned her head away, her hand coming up to cover her mouth.
“My God,” she whispered, staring down at the wind-ruffled feathers of a headless duck. “Why? Why do this?”
“To demoralize. To spread terror. To apply pressure where the enemy is weakest.”
He urged his horse forward, carefully skirting a broken cart that lay on its side, its upthrust wheel creaking mournfully as it spun slowly in the wind.
They passed the remnants of the manor house, its wooden upper stories a mere pile of blackened timbers collapsed upon the stone undercroft. Bloated carcasses of pigs littered the yard and ruined outbuildings. The air hummed with the buzzing of flies.
“Is there no one left alive?” Attica asked, letting the roan pick its own way through the rubble-strewn track as she scanned the burned-out husks of what had once been houses and one small wooden church.
“The lord of the manor and his family were probably led off as captives to be ransomed. If they were lucky.” He checked his horse, his head falling back as he watched a wood pigeon suddenly take flight. “Everyone else who isn't dead is likely hiding.”
A gray striped cat with four white socks rubbed against the foundation stones of the village fountain, its mew plaintive. Attica reined the roan in beside it, but the cat took off, its paws scrambling over a broken crate.
“Don't look in the well,” said de Jarnac sharply as she was about to do just that.
She twisted in the saddle to stare at him. He sat at ease in his saddle, one hand resting on his hip, a dark, hard-faced knight on a dark war horse. The wind gusted around her, enveloping her in a swirl of white ash. She heard the jingle of the bit as the roan shook its head, impatient with the flies. And she realized her eyes were so dry that they hurt as if she had cried for hours, although she hadn't shed a tear.
Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because he said, “You're right; I know what to expect because I've done this. What did you think war is, Attica? Knights in burnished armor charging each other beneath billowing pennants? It is, sometimes. But more often than not, this”— he swept his arm in a wide arc— “this is the face of war.”
“Please,” she said hoarsely. “Can't we—”
She broke off as a pitiful wail pierced the wind-blown silence. Her head whipped around, her gaze probing the piles of trampled and rotting cabbages, the smashed earthenware, the broken benches and bits of fencing that littered the nearest toft. “What was that? It sounded like a baby.”
“A lamb, probably.” He slowly turned the big destrier, his hand on the hilt of his sword, his careful gaze sweeping over the devastated village.
“No. It was a child. I'm certain of it.”
And then she saw him: a small boy of perhaps two, naked except for a shirt. He came crawling out from beneath the shattered remnants of a hovel and staggered toward them, his mouth open in an endless, undulating cry, his fisted hands rubbing his eyes, his tears leaving tracks down his filthy cheeks.
At the edge of the toft, he paused, his chest rising on a shuddered breath. Then, before Attica could move toward him, the boy surged forward in a sudden rush. Startled, the big bay warhorse reared up, its great hooves slashing the air. The boy, running heedlessly forward, disappeared beneath the plunging stallion.
Attica bit back a scream as de Jarnac, swearing, twisted sideways and swooped down, bending dangerously, unbelievably low from the saddle. He came up with the squalling child held by the scruff of his collar. She let out her breath in a relieved rush. “Grace àDieu.”
“Huh.” De Jarnac's startlingly green eyes gleamed at her over the dark, matted head of the baby. “Instead of sitting there thanking God, perhaps you could try telling me what we're going to do with a baby? A baby, for the love of Mary.”
The child had latched on to the front of de Jarnac's hauberk with two frantic fists and buried its face into the knight's broad shoulder. Small shudders still shook the boy's thin frame, but he seemed reassured by the gentle strength of the brawny arm that held him so securely; the wailing ceased abruptly.
Attica smiled softly. “I think he likes you.”
A slow flush spread over the knight's high cheekbones. “Well, he'd best learn to like you instead. I can't even get at my sword, let alone swing it, with him in the way.”
Still smiling, she urged the roan closer and stretched out her arms toward the baby. “Here. Hand him to me.” The boy began to whimper again as de Jarnac loosed the little fists’ hold on his mail and she lifted the child gently onto her saddle bow. “Tout va bien, mon petit,” she whispered, trying to cradle the now howling, thrashing child to her. “It's all right.”
“You're not holding him right,” said de Jarnac. “Put one arm under his rump and use the other hand against his back to keep him steady.”
She adjusted her grip as instructed. With a gurgled hiccup, the child burrowed his face into her chest and quieted.
She laughed. “It worked.” Her head fell back, her gaze meeting his over the child's head. She saw a muscle bunch in his cheek. And then it was as if a sad kind of tenderness relaxed the harsh lines of his face, and he smiled.
Attica felt her heartbeat slow as the moment stretched out, became poignant and aching with things unsaid and impossible. Her skin grew warm, her breath easing out of her parted lips in a painful sigh. And she wanted, wanted—
“No!”
The sound of a frantic, high-pitched scream brought both their heads around.
A woman with unkempt dark hair and a contorted, grief-ravaged face came running down the road, her skirts kilted up, her arms waving frantically. “No! Don't take him!” She stumbled over a broken plow and went sprawling, but picked herself up and kept running. “He's mine; he's my Folcard. Oh, please don't take him.”
She stumbled to a halt some few feet from them, her chest heaving with the effort to suck in wind, her hands twisting in the skirt of her filthy, torn dress. Scratches covered her face and bare forearms; bits of dried leaves and twigs matted her hair. Her dark eyes were wide and wild in a pale face. “Please,” she said again, sinking to her knees, her cupped hands coming up beseechingly. “He's my Folcard. I left him here, in the house.” She nodded toward the pile of smoldering rubble beside them. “I left him and my Cecily with their papa while I went into the fields. But then the soldiers came, and I hid in the woods, and …” A shudder shook her shoulders, and she brought up her hands to cover her face. “Oh, God.”
“Be at peace, woman,” said de Jarnac. “We do not mean to steal your child. Get up.”
Her face wary and uncertain, the woman staggered to her feet as Attica urged the roan forward and held out the little boy. Folcard took one look at his mother and began to scream hysterically, his little legs pumping in the air, his arms waving so frantically, Attica almost dropped him.
The woman snatched the child to her as if she thought Attica might change her mind and take him back. “Folcard,” she said on a harsh expulsion of breath. “Folcard.” Sinking to her knees in the mud of the road, she buried her face in the child's neck and wept.
De J
arnac's big destrier fidgeted as he glanced around uncomfortably. “Madame?” he said after a moment. “What can you tell us of the army that did this?”
For a moment, Attica didn't think the woman was capable of answering. She simply rocked back and forth, her baby clutched to her chest, her eyes squeezed shut as she said his name over and over.
“My good woman,” said de Jarnac.
The woman's head fell back, her eyes opening, as if she had only just become aware that they were still there. “The army?” Her face contorted horribly. “God save us. They say that the conference at La Ferté-Bernard has collapsed; that's why Philip's army is on the march. He has taken La Ferté-Bernard and Montford—and Beaumont and Ballon as well. But we never expected them to come here. Not here.”
Unable to look at the woman's grief-stricken face, Attica let her gaze wander—then regretted it when her attention was caught by a pair of large, wooden-soled shoes thrusting out from beneath the burned timbers of the house beside them. When she looked closer, she could make out stout legs, encased in torn hose and lying deathly still.
Here, surely, was the woman's husband. And the little hand just visible beside his must belong to Cecily. Swallowing hard, Attica jerked her gaze away.
“And King Henry?” de Jarnac was asking. His voice sounded rough and impersonal, but the woman responded to it.
“Henry?” The woman's face hardened with something that might have been anger. “They say he has fled to Le Mans.”
De Jarnac lifted his head, his gaze sweeping the hills on the far side of the valley as he gathered his reins.
“What are we going to do?” asked Attica, watching him. “We can't simply ride off and leave her here alone with the child.”
His head swiveled toward her, his eyes narrowing. “What do you suggest?” he asked dryly. “That we take her with us?” But he dropped his gaze to the woman in the road. “Are there others of the village left alive?”
The Last Knight Page 24