Carroll, Laurie - War Of Hearts.txt
Page 17
now acted callous, though she could almost swear he
blushed...His inconstant nature had her close to
screaming with frustration.
He looked ready to speak, but kept his council,
turning instead to Rhea’s huge repast. There were eggs
and ham, biscuits and gravy.
“Cooking is a task women are well suited to,” he stated
between mouthsful as he devoured the meal.
After that, time passed wordlessly, the quiet broken
only by Liza’s occasional moans. Closely watching her
patient helped Alicen control the desire to throw a pot at
the arrogant knight’s head. She noted Liza’s delivery had
not progressed. There was yet more for the young woman
to endure.
Jeremy finished eating, gave Rhea a charming smile,
and rose. “’Twas excellent fare, grandam,” he said
earnestly. “Food somehow tastes better with a woman’s
touch. I get precious few well-cooked meals in the field.”
“Mayhap you should hire a wench as your cook,
Captain,” Alicen stated archly. “Though you’d likely have
to concern yourself with poisoning.”
Jeremy’s expression darkened. “Camp followers
abound near any army,” he retorted. “But the women’s
skills in other areas surpass their ability to prepare food.”
He slammed out the door.
“Damned contrary woman!” Jeremy raged beneath
his breath. “Why in sweet Jesu’s name do I permit her to
goad me so? She has me raving faster than anyone I
know!” He yanked off his shirt, flung it under a tree,
grabbed the axe, and started splitting wood with a
vengeance. His tirade continued unabated while he vented
his feelings on the kindling. “She knows just how to raise
my ire, and does so dawn to dusk.”
Women! God created them expressly to plague men.
And that woman made vexing him an avocation.
Yet more disturbing than her antagonism was his
response. He wanted to prove he wasn’t what she thought
him, that he valued life and sought—as did she—to
preserve it.
But he had to fight, to regain property stolen by Harold
of Stanhope. Then, mayhap he could live as he longed
to—watch his lands and villeins prosper, know the love
of a faithful woman, raise happy children. If he left the
campaign before defeating Harold, he had naught to
return to. That knowledge drove him on.
That knowledge was all that kept him going. He’d
become a warrior bereft of the battle lust which sustained
men at arms. Somewhere between the dazzling court of
London and the blood-soaked fields of France, he’d lost
his zeal to wreak havoc for king and country.
After he won back his lands, he’d fight no longer.
He struck the log with sustained vigor, so hard his
hands tingled from the reverberations of the axe handle.
***
Rhea looked toward the bed where Liza lay before
turning to Alicen to whisper, “You and the captain favor
antagonists in a bear baiting.”
Alicen, sitting across the table from Rhea, leaned
closer to say quietly but succinctly, “He’s an overbearing
lout.” Then she raised her voice to call out, “Liza, if the
pain mounts, don’t hold your tongue. Call out.”
“I will,” came the hoarse reply.
“He appears a gentleman to me.” Rhea kept her voice
low, for Alicen’s ears only.
Alicen scowled. “You truly know him not. He abhors
women. To him, we’re good only to take his ease upon,
little else. Once we’ve assuaged his lust—or his stomach’s
hunger—we may as well be dirt on the floor.”
Rhea’s face blanched. “Did he force himself upon
you?”
Heat shot up Alicen’s cheeks as she realized what
she’d implied. “Nay, of course not! ’Tis just that...”
She’d worked herself to near exhaustion, hoping to
forget their intimacy. But not even exhaustion could drive
from her mind the memory of Jeremy’s embrace.
Could she explain the chaos he caused in her? Though
the soldier repelled, the man attracted. He was churl and
charmer—infuriating one moment, bemusing the next.
She conceded to being out of her depth with him.
“He’s spoken plain that he dislikes me because I’m
female,” she stated carefully, trying to gather her thoughts
and control her feelings. “Yet, he visited the inn just before
William awoke...”
Alicen knew she was blushing. Rhea’s keen stare
didn’t help her discomfort, either.
The old midwife nodded. “He’s the one! That slut Sylvia
bragged to all of her night beneath a handsome stranger.
She claimed him a magnificent lover.”
“He’s likely a rutting beast,” Alicen huffed, ignoring
the twinge in her chest brought on by images of the knight
in a whore’s arms. “Though ’tis certain Sylvia’s had
enough variety to make a sage judgment.”
Rhea frowned. “Methinks Sylvia lied. I sensed she had
no carnal knowledge of him at all. ’Twas something in
the way she spoke of him...Still, you chafe the captain
o’ermuch. If he truly doubts you as deeply as you say,
’twould be wise to walk softly around him.”
Alicen recalled Jeremy’s recent gallantry and felt her
legs grow weak. “I doubt he’ll harm me. After all, I’ve a
use.” She stifled abrupt melancholy. “But you speak true
that I vex him apurpose. He raises my ire like none I’ve
ever known.”
“He has an air of sadness about him that bespeaks a
great hurt. Mayhap he can only vent that hurt in anger.”
“And I’m the target of his wrath.”
Rhea covered her friend’s hand with her own gnarled
one. “You’ve the healing gift, lass. Methinks the captain
is drawn to that, yet dares not voice his need for it.”
“I can do naught for his soul,” Alicen scoffed. “Fate
drew him to me—his duke near death and I the closest
healer.” Alicen’s heart and mind were filled with untold
turmoil when she looked up from Rhea’s hand to the
woman’s aged face.
Her feelings must have shown in her expression,
because the old midwife’s look went from wistful to wry
in a breath. “I daresay you’ve little understanding of men,
lass.”
“Nor do I desire to improve my knowledge. Sir Jeremy
Blaine is a nettle I’ll happily soon be rid of.”
“If that is as you say.” Rhea rose to clear the table.
Alicen pondered Rhea’s words until the ring of the
axe penetrated her musings. Jeremy was not obliged to
chop kindling for Liza, and he’d already split enough to
accommodate the length of his stay. Did he continue out
of kindness? The man certainly was capable of chivalry
for its own sake.
She loathed admitting that on more than one occasion
he had attempted civility toward her. Yet her pride
demanded she not reciprocate. Except when he held her...
&nbs
p; She closed her mind to that memory. What had passed
between them was a mistake. It would never occur again.
But mistake or no, she’d deliberately angered him and
now owed him an apology.
’Twas her turn to fashion a truce between them, as
he’d tried to do several weeks before.
Eleven
The third log was quickly succumbing, and Jeremy’s
anger with it.
“Alicen Kent be damned,” he cursed low at the wood
he hacked to pieces. She has my escort at William’s
command, not at her wish...or mine...Falling into enemy
hands would serve her, the way she courts misfortune
riding about alone. He struck the wood again. Abduction
would teach her a lesson in humility she’d not soon forget.
Intent upon his dark thoughts and the task at hand,
he kept to his grueling tempo without breaking rhythm,
his body racing to keep pace with his ire.
With appreciation, Alicen stood in the doorway of the
cottage and watched him work. Broad shoulders tapered
to slim hips, and long, hard muscles undulated along
arms and chest. Only a narrow line of dark hair around
his navel marred his sleekness. He put her in mind of a
fine race horse, lean yet powerful, with endurance beyond
the ordinary. Strong thighs hinted at hours of riding. The
man was an image of splendid, graceful lines.
Alicen started from her musings. She had come to
make amends for her shrewish actions, not to admire his
physique. Yet, how to proceed? She bit her lip and worried
the problem.
Circumstance provided her an opportunity as, in the
next moment, Jeremy’s grip on the axe slipped as he
struck the log. He cursed roundly and dropped the tool
to grasp his left hand.
“Christ’s guts!” He turned as Alicen moved toward
him.
“What happened?”
Holding up the injured hand, he said calmly, “A
splinter.”
Alicen almost gasped when she saw the inch-long
splinter driven under the skin up the side of his thumb.
She seized his wrist and examined the injury. “You do
naught in small portions, Captain.” Leading him by the
hand, she sat him down beside the well then left to get
her instruments.
Once she’d set a blade near him, she again took his
hand. His skin’s warmth made her pulse race. Lowering
her head, ostensibly to look more closely at the splinter,
she hastily gathered her scattered wits. The patient’s need
saved her.
“Fortunately, this didn’t go straight in,” she
commented when her voice returned. “You’d have lost
your thumb. It may be discomfiting for a time, but you’ll
not forfeit use of the hand.” She slit the skin atop the
splinter and pulled the piece out. In a trice, the wound
was cleaned, salved and bandaged.
“There. ‘Twill be like new a few days hence.” She
paused, still holding his hand as if inspecting her work.
“You needn’t have cut so much wood, Captain, though it
will be put to good use. That was very kind of you.”
She looked openly into his eyes a moment, seeing
wariness in his guarded blue stare. Embarrassed, she
released him and rose, imagining he thought her a fool.
Avoiding his intense look, she quickly gathered her things,
escape dominating her thoughts. How she controlled her
impulse to dash back into Liza’s hut, she didn’t know.
Gaze riveted on Alicen, Jeremy sat motionless while
his mind raced. At her simplest touch his entire body
tingled. His senses quite simply hummed with her about.
Each was filled with this woman—with her feel, her smell,
her essence—and he could not prevent their assault on
his reason. He found himself reaching out to touch her
sleeve.
“Will the injury worsen should I continue?” he asked,
then dropped his gaze sheepishly. He sensed her
discomfort at his nearness, but need overpowered honor.
She must remain. “Inside, I’m of little use. It suits me to
work out here.”
Amazement flashed in Alicen’s eyes, but her tone
indicated only efficiency when she replied, “If the pain is
bearable, Captain, do as you wish. Should your thumb
begin bleeding, though, ’twould be wise to rest.”
He gave her a brief smile. “My thanks.”
A knot grew in his throat as he watched her walk
away. Alicen could soothe his hurts merely by asking to
see the wound. Her compassion comforted him as nothing
else could.
A powerful image besieged him, that of a woman
terrified of storms braving a tempest to aid a babe’s birth,
risking her life to bring new life into the world. He quelled
the memory of their kiss. With any other, such an
occurrence might have led to something he could ill afford
between Alicen and himself. He had to keep his distance.
Duty demanded aloofness.
With lacerating certainty he knew he’d erred in
accompanying her here. Instinct warned him to keep a
wall of indifference between them. He couldn’t. Not when
her welfare concerned him, when he’d insisted on staying.
Now, the sight of Liza Wick’s labor scoured his emotions
raw until Estelle’s betrayal and death shrieked down the
corridors of his past.
He tried to convince himself his presentiment was
unfounded, that recent desires had combined with
memory to unbalance him. Yet, he knew for certain his
presence would have grave results. A sudden chill up his
spine and a cold breeze seemingly rising from nowhere
reinforced his certainty.
Let her go, he thought he heard a woman whisper.
You can’t change what’s past.
He straightened, shaking his head to clear it. His
preoccupation with Alicen Kent had caused him to give
in to fancy. Enough was enough. He’d not dishonor
himself by disobeying William’s orders. And he knew
firsthand that avoiding Alicen didn’t purge her from his
thoughts. With a sigh, he returned to work.
By dusk he had chopped half a cord of wood, and he
ached from fatigue. When Rhea called him to eat, he
gratefully put down the axe and washed at the well. A
bucket of cold water poured over his head brought a
welcome shock.
Suddenly, Alicen stood beside him, towel in hand.
“Here, Captain, dry yourself with this.”
He nodded and put the cloth to good use. Yet while
she drew a bucket of water and hastened back inside, he
stood bemused, wondering if she’d intended the kindness
or if Rhea had suggested it. He hoped Alicen had come of
her own will.
After shaking water from his hair, he wiped his face
then donned his shirt, all the time pondering Alicen’s
motives. Her complete unpredictability matched his own
reaction to her at any given time. One moment he wished
to throttle her, the next...He forced himself to discontinue
his line of thought.
***
“Rhea, oppose me not, I pray,” Alicen said patiently
as they sat finishing the meal. “You’ve toiled all day and
deserve your rest. Is the foundling, Pearl, not at your
home? See to her. I’ll send Captain Blaine when you’re
needed.”
“Whelp, I can work as hard as you,” Rhea retorted
with feigned affront.
Alicen laughed. “You speak truth. Thus my resolve
that you should return home. ’Twould be too humbling
to admit someone thrice my age has more endurance.”
At this, Rhea cackled. “I’m yet young enough to take
you o’er my knee to teach you reverence for your elders.
Keep that well in mind, lassie.”
Alicen laughed. “Advancing age makes you more than
a trifle vain. I’ll never see you turn me over your knee.”
“I could, though I might have to seek aid.” Rhea shot
a sly look at Jeremy.
“You’ve no need for reinforcements, friend,” Alicen
responded smoothly and saw relief in Jeremy’s eyes when
he looked up at her. “I concede the field. Now, get you
home to rest.”
“Since you concede, I’ll retire.” Smiling, Rhea moved
to pick up her cloak.
Jeremy already held it. “May I see you home,
grandam?” he asked gallantly.
“Nay, sir. You could see me to the inn for several cups
of ale, though.”
Jeremy looked startled, and both Rhea and Alicen
laughed.
“Lock her in her home if you must, Sir Jeremy,” Alicen
stated dryly. “Else no young swain will be safe tonight.”
“I’ll leave such sport to Sylvia,” Rhea retorted. “She’s
far better suited to that than I.”
Alicen covertly studied Jeremy, but he did not react
at mention of the whore.
Jeremy remained stoic, but their talk reminded him
of his drunkenness at the tavern, of buying information
from Sylvia, and of his aching head the next morn. He
winced inwardly. No force on Earth could make him repeat
that lamentable performance.
Rhea’s suddenly grave tone broke into Jeremy’s
thoughts.
“Send for me when the time comes, Alicen,” the old
midwife stated.
“Rest assured I shall.” Alicen stood in the doorway
watching Jeremy mount his horse then easily lift Rhea
up behind him. She found Liza’s temperature elevated