He tore his lips from his captive’s, hardened himself against the way her eyes widened in awe. Her lips were ripe and ruddy, bruised from his touch; she looked disheveled and willing.
But she was a madness in his blood, this one. She distracted him from his purpose and he could suffer naught that might lead to failure. Rodney’s persistent tirades against the charms of women echoed through his thoughts and Angus hardened his will against this one. He had meant to frighten her, after all, though she had readily persuaded him to forget that detail.
In compense for his failure, he acted quickly. He let a cold smile curve his lips and tightened his fingers over her breast.
“Forgive me, Rodney,” he said, his gaze fixed upon her, watching as dismay lit those fine eyes. “’Twould have been rude to not partake of the feast the lady offered.”
She gasped in horror, but Angus bent and kissed her hard, sliding his tongue between her lips with an aggression that startled them both.
Then he rolled away and stood, apparently indifferent though he was not. He told himself that her disgust should please him more than it did, and got to his feet. He slid his blade into its scabbard without another glance to his captive. Angus ignored both the weight of the woman’s gazes upon him and the censure in Edana’s expression.
His gut curled with guilt that he had again wrought naught but ill when he sought to right a wrong. This innocent maiden wanted only to pledge herself to the faith and he was knave enough that he could not kept from tainting her with his touch. He was not so innocent of the world and the suspicions of men that he imagined a prolonged captivity might keep her from her only goal.
Angus knew, whatever the wrongs committed against himself, he had no right to steal his captive’s dream. But if he released her, he would be left with naught once again, and become a hunted brigand as well.
Nay, there was but one solution. In that moment, he dismissed his original intent to let the woman’s father fret for a week before demanding his due. Rodney would ride out this very day. This matter had to be resolved and soon, lest it not come to success after all. He would have Airdfinnan and be rid of his captive before he was fool enough to err again.
“You have changed much,” Edana whispered as he passed her side. Her tight lips revealed her view of that change.
Angus was sufficiently angered with himself that he needed no criticism from another. He paused, staring down long enough that she might see the fury that burned coldly within him.
Edana flinched and drew back.
But ’twas better if they thought him a cold-hearted knave, if the maiden feared him and stayed from his path. There was less chance that way that he might lose the only advantage he had in this endeavor.
“Aye,” Angus murmured with rare heat, “that I have, and woe to any so fool as to stand within my path.”
With that, he marched out into the gentle rain of the morning, haunted by the lingering sweetness of the maiden’s kiss.
Chapter Six
Jacqueline was mortified. Not only had she invited Angus to kiss her, but she had enjoyed his touch.
At first. That parting kiss, though, had stolen away both her surprise and pleasure. Aye, he revealed then what he thought of her, and she recalled all her mother’s admonitions to her half-sister Alienor on the comport of whores. If she were raped now, she supposed she had only herself to blame.
Her cheeks burned with shame and she could not meet Edana’s gaze. She sat up, unwilling to remain abed where he had touched her thus, and pushed her hair from her brow.
Edana’s stare was too unswerving to grant Jacqueline any faith that her discomfort was truly hidden. Her braid though had loosened during the night and she made to unfurl the tangle, hiding her shame beneath its golden curtain. Her fingers shook as she unknotted the lace, the task taking longer than ever it did. Even behind her hair, she knew that Edana watched her, unblinking, like her mother’s prized peregrine.
A heavy silence pushed at Jacqueline’s ears, until she thought she could bear it no longer without screaming. Suddenly, Edana shoved to her feet, her cane tapping as she crossed the hut. To Jacqueline’s relief, the old woman did not come to her or speak to her.
Not immediately. Once the fire was lit in the small brazier and a dented pot of water was set to heat, Edana rummaged through a small chest, then offered something. Jacqueline pretended not to see the gesture, an easy deed since she had bent her head so that her tangled hair spilled forward.
“’Tis a comb, lass. Take it.” Edana said impatiently.
’Twould have been rude to spurn a well-intentioned offering. The comb was missing a few teeth but was not an unwelcome aid. Jacqueline tugged the comb through her hair with savage gestures, not caring how it hurt. Indeed, she deserved whatever injury was inflicted as penance for being such a fool.
Edana watched her. “Why did you ask him to kiss you?”
“You were awake!”
The older woman almost smiled at Jacqueline’s dismay. “I seldom truly sleep, lass. And indeed, ’tis why he...” She halted and shook her head.
“Why he did what? And who do you mean?”
Edana smiled. “You did ask him to kiss you, did you not?”
“Aye.” Jacqueline fairly growled the admission. “Though I know now the magnitude of my error.”
“How so?”
“He is no man of honor.”
“Because he took what you offered?”
“Because he forced more upon me!”
Edana clicked her tongue and poked at the pot with her walking stick. “Where is it writ, lass, that a kiss between a man and a woman is under the jurisdiction of one or the other? Hmmm? A kiss is wondrous, yet magical all the same. It takes from both participants and makes something new of itself. ’Tis not uncommon to hear that a kiss became a force of its own.”
“The only force was in that second kiss,” Jacqueline insisted. “For ’twas inflicted upon me.”
“And so different from the first, was it not?”
Jacqueline looked up, but Edana appeared concerned only with her pot of water.
“Almost -” the old woman mused, her voice so low that Jacqueline had to strain to hear the words “- as if ’twas given by another man. A second man within the skin of the first.” She flicked a glance across the space.
Angus had listened to her, and teased her, much as her step-father would have done. But the second kiss was indeed so different that it might have been rendered by a different man.
A man not unlike the many suitors who had courted her. Or like Reynaud.
But the Angus to whom she had granted that kiss willingly had been another matter indeed.
And that made Jacqueline wonder. “You knew him before. You said he had changed.”
“Aye.” The old woman nodded, as though reluctant to say much further. “And aye again, I must admit.”
“How did he change?”
“He would not have me speak of him.”
“He need not know you did.”
Edana raised her brows.
“’Tis true!” Jacqueline protested. “I will not tell him of it if you speak to me of him. How has he changed?”
“How is he not changed?” Edana finally sighed, turned to look after the departed knight with a frown, then leaned closer. “’Tis true that I knew Angus once, though not in such garb and not so scarred as this. Indeed, I scarce recognized him when he stood before me last eve.”
Jacqueline watched her carefully, anxious to learn more.
But Edana did not indulge her curiosity as yet. “Why would you join a convent?” the older woman demanded with some irritation. “You must know that you are fair of face. ’Tis the choice of an old woman, one tired of life’s pleasures, to retreat to a convent, not that of a young demoiselle who has yet to sip from that fount.”
“So all are quick to observe.” Edana’s gaze was unswerving and Jacqueline felt compelled to continue. “I have a calling, to serve Christ, to share my gif
ts with the Church.”
“Nonsense.” Edana spat into the rushes in the corner. “You flee something, just as you have tried to flee Angus. To flee your captor is a deed I can understand, though in my time, Ceinn-beithe was not a place worth fleeing.”
“I flee no one.”
“Then why? You have a greater reason than the one you give.”
Jacqueline sighed and put down the comb. “Because I know that ’tis within the embrace of the Church that I will be appreciated for the full bounty of the gifts I can share, not for how well I might adorn a man’s arm, his table, or his bed.”
Edana studied her. “You have been pursued for your beauty alone.”
“Aye.”
The old woman smiled and cast a handful of herbs into her pot, pausing to stir the concoction. “Then I approve of your choice,” she said unexpectedly.
“You do?”
“Aye. A woman is not an ornament and she should not be treated as one.”
“Indeed!” ’Twas a delight to Jacqueline to meet someone who did not try to dissuade her from her course.
Edana held up one finger. “But, not all men make the mistake of seeking only beauty. There are men who see past a woman’s youthful charms, men who know that ’tis the woman herself with whom they may have the grace to grow old.”
Jacqueline tied her braid decisively. “Perhaps, but I have not met such a man.”
Edana tilted her head to watch her, her eyes bright. “Have you not?”
“I stand corrected. My step-father is such a man, and perhaps my uncle Guillaume...”
“Let me tell you a tale, my demoiselle,” Edana interrupted. The French fell so readily from the older woman’s tongue that Jacqueline blinked in surprise. Before she could ask Edana’s origins, the woman continued. “I will tell you a tale, for the lady of the well claims she is well pleased with you and I too find you a charming maiden.”
“Will you tell me how you know Angus?”
Edana pursed her lips. “Now there is a tale, and one too long to be readily told. ’Tis not all mine to share.”
“You might tell me some of it. You might tell me the truth.”
“And what is the truth, lass?”
“The honest tale of what happened, with no embellishment or omission. The truth is simple, the whole truth even more so.”
“You speak with the conviction of the young.” Edana seemed to find this amusing. “Naught is simple about the truth. There is the truth of what happened and the truth of what I believe happened and the truth of what I still remember to have happened. And that does not embrace the truths perceived and remembered by others, let alone whether any of us witnessed the fullness of the truth in the first place.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“I speak in truths.” Edana grinned then, as though well pleased with herself.
Jacqueline sighed in frustration, not sharing the older woman’s delight in their conversation. “Very well. Will you tell one truth that you recall of what you perceived of what happened when you met Angus?”
Edana sobered and straightened. “You have an audacious tongue, lass, for all the beauty of your face.” Jacqueline blushed, but the old woman continued. “When first I saw you, I feared you would be witless or bland or uninteresting in some other way. ’Tis a pleasant surprise to discover fine company unexpectedly.”
Jacqueline did not know what to say to that. Edana fetched her stool and seated herself beside Jacqueline, her ancient fingers sorting dried leaves into two virtually indistinguishable piles. Jacqueline recognized neither the leaf nor the scent.
“Once upon a time, a young beauty, not unlike yourself, was betrothed to a chieftain considerably her senior. She was afraid of the match, for her groom was said to be bloodthirsty and boisterous, but her parents believed the match to be a good one. An obedient daughter, she met the chieftain before the doors of the church on the agreed day to take her vows. ’Twas said her heart nigh stopped when she saw the size of the warrior in whose bed she would lie.”
“But she wed him?”
“Aye, she was a dutiful daughter, as I have said.” Edana worked for a moment in silence as the rain pattered on the roof. “And their nuptial feast was a merry one, involving days of singing and dancing. But in the midst of the festivities, an emissary came to the door of their abode.
“This man had ridden from the Norman court of a distant cousin of the lady. He brought a gift for the nuptials, a marvel that enchanted all.” Edana paused to lick her lips. “What do you think ’twas?”
“Jewels and gold.”
“Nay.”
“Exotic silks, or dyes, or perfumes.”
“Nay again, though you draw close.”
“Some marvelous foodstuff. A fruit from the south!”
“Nay. One fruit would not have fed that gathering, and once ’twas gone, ’twould have been gone forever. That would have been a gift that brought disappointment, and thus no token of esteem. Nay, a nuptial gift must endure for as many years as the match it celebrates.”
“Then I do not know.”
Edana smiled, looking as mischievous as an impish fairy from one of Duncan’s tales. She tapped a finger on Jacqueline’s knee. “He brought a colony of bees.”
Jacqueline was incredulous. She hugged her knees and listened avidly, for she dearly loved tales. “Bees? But how?”
“In a woven skep of clever design, though still ’twas no small trouble. ’Twas early in the spring when he arrived, so his charges had been slumbering for most of the journey. Yet in that skep was a queen and all the drones to make a larger colony and a fine supply of honey. They were particularly fine bees and inclined to make much honey, by his telling.
“’Twas a most generous gift, so generous that the recipients hesitated before accepting it. ’Twas said the lady wondered what her cousin wanted of her.”
“Did she accept it?”
Edana smiled at the prompting. “Aye. ’Twas coyly chosen, for in truth she could not have denied it. She had a fondness for a sweet, did the lady, and there is no sweetness to match that of fine honey. And as the emissary was a priest, ’twas felt denying the offering might be a poor choice. The priest insisted that the Norman lord who was the lady’s cousin wished only to ensure that this family listened to his news and counsel. The only thing required of them in return for this generosity was their attention to the priest’s news.
“To this, they willingly agreed. All of the household was assembled in the hall to hear whatsoever the priest might say. The minstrels were silenced and the peasants gathered with all the chieftain’s men. The priest did not disappoint. He spoke with such charm and character that none found his recounting to be dull—indeed, ’twas the stuff of a wondrous tale he revealed.
“Unbeknownst to all those within this remote household, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was being besieged by the infidel. The Saracens had already seized the county of Edessa. There was great fear that all that had been gained in the Holy Land with the blood of courageous crusaders would be stolen away once more. The Pope Eugenius II had called for a new crusade, to right this wrong, to reassert the claim of Christendom to the Holy City where Christ had met his end and risen again.”
“’Twas the crusade endorsed by Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercian order,” Jacqueline contributed, recalling well her lessons from Ceinn-beithe’s priest.
“Aye, though ’twas to be led by no lesser men than the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III and Louis VII, King of France. ’Twas said that a grim Day of Judgment would be visited upon those Christians who did not take up the cross to defend what should have been most holy to them and their faith. The priest, delivering this missive at the behest of the lady’s family, called for her husband, the chieftain, to take up arms and lead his men to join this quest.”
Edana paused, rising to fetch more of her leaves. It seemed to take her overly long to gather them and Jacqueline’s toe tapped in her impatience to hear more. She barely
managed to wait until the older woman was seated again before her question burst forth.
“And? Did they go?”
“There was a difficulty.” Edana pursed her lips. “The chieftain himself had not been raised in the faith of Christians. He had permitted himself to be baptized solely that he might wed his chosen bride, whose family insisted upon as much.”
“He was pagan.”
“Nay, ’twas more accurately said that he was indifferent. As a man wholly enthralled with matters of this world, he had little interest in faith of any kind. And he had less interest in traveling the breadth of Christendom, to be parted from his new wife for years, to father no sons, and perhaps to die far from hearth and home. He was no longer a young man and he certainly had no fear of any pending judgment.
“In fact, he immediately declined to go. ’Twas his manner to make choices quickly and cling to them tenaciously. And without his endorsement of the righteousness of this battle, not a single man from his household went.”
“The priest must have been disappointed.”
“Aye. I expect he was. And truly, there was some concern of repercussions. The lady’s cousin, after all, had merely wanted to ensure that her family were warned of their possible peril. ’Twas a message sent in good faith, not matter what its result. The chieftain insisted upon granting the priest a similarly generous gift to return to the cousin so that relations would not worsen between them.
“The priest, however, would not accept such a gift, though he did not discourage the chieftain from sending it with a different envoy. Indeed, he had seen how thin the veil of faith was in these lands and he resolved in the hall of the chieftain that he would bring all these wayward lambs beneath the shelter of Christ. He vowed to stay and preach.”
“It sounds as though his teachings were well needed.”
Edana did not reply to that, though she gave Jacqueline a censorious glance. “The chieftain, seeing his opportunity to make something of naught, granted an endowment to found a monastery. The priest graciously accepted this gift and set about preaching the word to all who would listen.
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