Hot Knights

by Rue Allyn

  “You would commit suicide over a situation that is not of your making? ’Tis foolish beyond belief. And you worry over my soul should I decide to return and give Basti the death he richly deserves?”

  Juliana laughed. “You misunderstand. When we reach the farthest point from both London and Rome, I will simply disappear and take a new name. You will go on to Edward and report that I died on the journey. ’Tis simple.”

  “’Tis a lie, and I will not do it.”

  “Why?”

  Why indeed? The plan offered resolution to all issues, save one. Edward would be angry, no matter the cause, should Robert fail to produce Juliana for marriage to the Scot. But her reported death would be worse than her marriage. With enough greased palms, a marriage could be set aside no matter what papers claimed it could not. And papers could be lost or burnt. Too, Edward grieved for his Eleanor and would not take kindly to the death of another female relation. Death, however, could not be reversed, even if lied about. Even in pretense, he could not live with Juliana’s death.

  • • •

  “I asked why.” Juliana insisted on an answer.

  “Because I said I would not.”

  “Is that all the answer I will get?” She knew she being churlish, but she was weary of his moodiness and reticence. She did not want to abandon Robert—she would miss him greatly—but to fake her death was the best solution she could arrive at. With a new name, she could return to Palermo and try again to deliver copies of the documents that would topple Basti and his ilk. Yet, if she must be tied in marriage ’twould be on her terms, and she wanted to know what so burdened Robert’s soul.

  He crossed the room in an instant. He grasped the front of her gown and lifted her face to his. “No woman will die because of a Clarwyn. Not again.”

  She barely restrained herself from cowering, so great was the anger she saw there. Rage too like her uncle’s flared in Robert’s eyes. But Robert was not her uncle. Time and again he had proved himself the very model of a gentle knight. She would know what caused his anger.

  “Do not press me on this.”

  “I want to know what haunts you so; what drives you to deny the rock solid goodness in you.”

  He stood for a moment, shaking with violent emotion, and then dropped her to the coverlet. “I killed my father,” he shouted and stepped back from her. “I killed him because he was a murdering bastard who raped women, slit their throats, and watched them bleed to death.” He continued to back away. “I killed him because he threatened the life of my sister. I killed him because everything he ever told me was a lie: honor, love, courtesy, his pride in me, all lies.” He came to a halt with his back against the door. “I killed him because he was nothing but a dirty, filthy murderer and he killed my mother.” Robert left the room before she could utter a word.

  The coldness that developed between them settled in the moment he stalked back into the room from the dark, chill night. She’d had nothing but time to think and to wonder. ’Twas no surprise guilt and anger drove him like rampaging demons. His gentleness with women might surprise others, but to Juliana it made complete sense. Robert was fierce in defense of those he believed defenseless and just as fierce in blaming himself. He said he killed his father to protect his sister. That could hardly be considered murder, yet a son might not be able to forgive himself no matter how justified.

  She had never seen him rage thus. ’Twas a frightening sight. And if she had not known in her heart that Robert would never hurt her, she would have truly feared for her life. As it was, his inner pain worried her deeply—how could she help him see that he was nothing like the monster he claimed was his father?

  Before she could help, she needed to know more, and experience had taught her that unburdening oneself to another person could ease the worst regrets. Simply by listening, she might be able to ease his burdens. But first, she had to get him to talk to her.

  When Robert marched into the room from the bitter cold outside, he was icy in both body and spirit. Using a crutch, Juliana went to him, intending to give warmth and comfort, but he set her aside.

  Shaking her head she remained by the door and watched him take the one chair to the farthest corner of the room. He stood, staring at the seat as if he doubted he deserved even that small comfort. His shoulders were hunched and his body trembled. Was it cold lingering from his time outside, or did guilt now wrack his body as it had his soul.

  “You cannot avoid me,” she said.

  The hunched shoulders shrugged.

  “Please talk to me, Robert. You know I will not judge you.”

  “I care not if you judge me. I have already determined how flawed I am.”

  She wanted desperately to go to him, hold him, and comfort him. “You are wrong, you know.”

  His shoulders dropped then tensed as he whirled on her, fists clenched. “You cannot know, cannot understand. I need some shred of dignity. Talking about it will not help.”

  His expression was so like her uncle in a rage, it was all she could do not to flinch. But she would not let Robert imagine he frightened her. ’Twould only confirm his opinion that he was as monstrous as his father.

  She raised a brow and forced herself to show a calm she did not feel. “Prove it. Prove that I cannot understand. Tell me what your life was like. Tell me what happened. Then decide if I am incapable of understanding. Tell me now, and I’ll not ask you to speak of it again.”

  He thrust his hands into his hair, anguish clear in his features. “What more can I tell you? That I loved him, thought the world of a man who even when he told me I was everything he could want in a son, lied without conscience.”

  He slumped into the chair and stared. He did not seem to see her.

  “We lived in an isolated corner of England and rarely saw other folk. Our family was close, my father and I closer. He would leave every month or so. Every parting was wrenching, every return joyous. I never suspected until years later. When I was older and found him cleaning his sword one day not long after one of his journeys. He was cleaning it with dress material. The type of silk and samite worn by my mother on high occasions.”

  She dared not interrupt him, dared not move lest she cause him to stop.

  “I thought it odd, but he made some excuse—I cannot even recall what—and I thought no more of it until weeks later. He’d been gone again. I did not see him clean the sword, but I found the bloody rags. He’d been careless and had not hidden them. There was so much blood, I wondered if he’d encountered thieves or beasts and had been forced to fight them off. I intended to ask him but decided to dispose of the rags first. I was on my way to the fire kept burning in the blacksmith’s shop when I saw a feed bin left open. I went to close it. I looked inside first to assure myself no animals had gotten within. I found more rags. Hundreds of bloody rags just like the ones in my hands. They had to belong to my father, but how had he gotten so many and why not throw them away or burn them? He couldn’t have encountered that many thieves or wild animals.

  ‘I was confused and frightened. Where was he? What was so important that he would have left such things lying about? I dropped the rags into the bin and ran to the keep. I heard the screams before I got to the door. I raced up the stairs to the solar. My mother lay on the floor, bleeding to death, and my father held my sister at sword point against a wall. I did not stop to think. I did not ask what had happened. I simply drew my dagger and leapt on him. I went for his sword arm first to keep him from slicing my sister open as he had my mother. Then I must have stabbed him in the back a dozen times before he dropped to the floor.

  “Even as he lay dying, he ranted about what foul, evil creatures women were and that he’d lived too long with their sinful influence. He told me about the women he’d killed to rid the world of their filth. Even his wife and daughter deserved death for they had questioned his behavior—as I had intended to. He did not seem to realize that I was the one who’d stabbed him, and instructed me to carry on his work.”

>   Slowly Juliana moved to sit by Robert, placing her hands over his.

  One tear slid across his cheek, then another and another. He did not wipe at them or act as if he knew he wept.

  “I turned my back on him and went to my sister. She sat weeping by our mother, who had died while I killed her husband. After a year of trying to keep the deaths a secret, my sister retired to a nunnery. I went to King Edward and confessed all to him. There was a trial. I was acquitted, but my father was convicted on more than one hundred charges of murder. Since he could not be punished, his lands were forfeit to the crown, and I became a baron in name only. I was shunned at court, so I asked Edward for a means of clearing my family’s name and perhaps regaining the Ravensmere lands. I became one of his hunters. I used my disgust for my father’s crimes to justify hunting men like him and other criminals. But my soul was sickened by so much cruelty. Edward asked one last task of me before he returned Ravensmere to me.”

  “He sent you after me,” she whispered.

  Robert nodded. “Edward should have sent someone else. I am no better than the murdering bastard who fathered me. I should have seen long before I did. I should have stopped my father. But I did not, not until far too late. I refused to see the truth, and when I did finally see, I resorted to murder, just like my father. ’Tis my own fault I had to kill him.”

  “Robert, you have done enough penance to wash clean a thousand souls. God has surely forgiven you. Now you must forgive yourself.”

  He snorted. “What I have done is unforgiveable. No penance can atone for patricide.”

  “That is not true.”

  He raised his gaze to her. The tears had ceased, but what she saw in his eyes was bleaker than the coldest snow. His jaw hardened. “Believe what you like. Now go to bed.”

  “Not while you are suffering.”

  He sneered. “I shall never stop suffering. I have done as you asked. I told you the source of my great sin. We will not speak of it again, as you promised.”

  She opened her mouth then shut it. She had promised. She would not break that promise now. She would pray for Robert to change his mind.

  He turned the chair to face the window, and she settled on the bed. ’Twas a very long time before she slept.

  • • •

  Winter arrived early in the Alps and each day was colder than the last. Robert’s silence matched the weather. Juliana knew his outward demeanor masked an inner pain that worried her deeply. But Robert remained steadfastly silent. Try as she might, she could not melt the icy control he maintained, nor thaw his chilly politesse. She resigned herself to patience. Surely something would happen to jolt him from his self-imposed misery.

  He urged his horse up a frozen slope. Juliana followed, her horse on a leader tied to Robert’s cantle. Her foot was much better now, after days of rest while they rode. The bruises had faded to a pale greenish yellow, and the swelling was completely gone. She could even put weight on it for short periods. All the same, Robert insisted on using the leader, so that she would be spared the smallest strain on her injured limb. “You will heal faster,” he insisted. She had been forced to agree.

  Perhaps ’twas for the best. Her injury still slowed her enough that she could never disappear as she had planned without his aid. Too bad she did not still have the papal letters to trade with Edward for her freedom. Her cousin would surely have valued such power over the pope above a mere political marriage with a Scot. Had she the letters, she could give Edward one then distribute the others as planned. But she must stop dreaming of the impossible. She was left with only one course: continue the journey to England and refuse the Scot in person. Draw Edward’s wrath to herself, leaving the king’s gratitude for Robert and a job well done.

  Aye, ’twould be wrong of her to leave the man she cared for deeply to face her cousin’s ire. She resigned herself to guarding Robert from as much of Edward’s anger as she could and no longer pressed for the plan she had put so much thought into. Melancholy and hopelessness filled her, for she could not change her fate nor could she help her husband forgive himself.

  • • •

  For the next several weeks the world narrowed to the space of a saddle and the few spots of rest that Robert allowed. The weather warmed a bit as they left the mountains, but chilled again as they neared the coast. Opportunities to converse were scarce. Robert made every effort to avoid talking with Juliana during the few chances they had. Since the day he told her of his father, she had changed, for she rarely smiled. Robert believed he knew the source of the change. She finally realized he was beyond redemption. ’Twas as well she would be his wife for only a few more days.

  The afternoon they rode into Le Havre, he drew a sigh as heavy as the incessant wind and rain. His time with Juliana would be over soon. A short voyage across the channel and up the Thames, then a week at most to end the journey wherever Edward was to be found, and Robert would be free of Juliana forever. Why did he not feel like rejoicing?

  He escorted her to an inn, procured a room, and told her to stay put. He need not have bothered. She was asleep before he shut the door.

  More tired than he ever imagined possible, he hurried to the harbor to find passage on a ship. He spoke with a dozen captains before he believed what the first one told him. With storm and tide rising, only a fool would lift anchor for anywhere, let alone England, which lay directly in the path of the gale.

  Disheartened, he returned to the inn. Too weary even to eat, Robert climbed the stairs. He entered the chamber. It was warm and smelled faintly of heather and Juliana. He draped his sodden cloak near the brasier and studied the thin rug beneath his feet. ’Twas where he should sleep.

  His gaze traveled to the narrow bed. Juliana’s form huddled atop the covers where she had fallen before he left for the harbor. Was she cold? Steam rose off of Robert’s clothing as he stripped down to his hose, and his body began to warm faster. Once dry, if he lay down on the bed, he could share his heat with her.

  He knew the thought for the excuse it was. He wanted Juliana in his arms. He wanted one more taste of heaven before he gave paradise over to another, safer man. Dare he take what the church recognized as his? He looked once more at the floor. Water pooled on the boards and the thin rug was soaked through from the damp he had brought in with him.

  Wise or not, in bed with Juliana was the only available dry place for him to sleep this night. Saint Swithan save him from touching her. Once he did, he knew he would not be able to stop.

  He settled beside her and prayed for a dreamless sleep. ’Twas not to be, for Juliana haunted his rest. Juliana laughing, smiling, talking, making love. Juliana in every guise he’d known her. And God forgive him, he could not resist reaching for her. Then he slept.

  Robert’s fingertips moved within hot silk. His manhood throbbed painfully. He heard a moan and tried to withdraw his fingers from the heat. His free arm reached for Juliana, and he opened his eyes. Cool, blue pools ablaze with passion smiled at him. Juliana was already pressed tight against him. She shifted her head toward him, and damascene lips moved languidly against his mouth. Her thighs trapped his palm neatly at the brink of her womanhood.

  Her busy fingers stroked over his buttocks. Her hips thrust against his hand, demanding, insistent.

  He broke the kiss and took a deep breath. “You know not what you do.”

  She gave her head a slow shake and licked her lips.

  His cock constricted. Passion squeezed his body with delicious agony. His resistance cracked.

  “I know exactly what I do. You taught me.”

  “You were supposed to be too drunk to remember.”

  “Drunkenness is bitter dregs beside the pleasure we shared on our wedding night.” She caught his free hand and placed it on her breast.

  Robert jerked his hand away as if scalded. “Cold lust is like too much wine and will leave you empty and aching afterward. The future holds no love for us.”

  Her body stilled, and she stared at him for a long
time. “Do you think that because you killed a murderer in defense of your sister that you are not worthy of love?”

  “That murderer was my father, Juliana.”

  “Aye. Your father; not you,” she stated calmly.

  “Murderers do not deserve love. I murdered my father. So let there be no more talk of love or futures between us.”

  “As you will, Robert, for tonight. Gift me but one favor, and I will ask for no promises.”

  “Do you swear?”

  “Upon the Cross, the Bible, and my aunt’s tears.”

  “Then what is it you wish of me?”

  “Make love to me this night.”

  He yielded to her hand’s gentle pressure, kissing her with all the passion he had. Juliana met him, measure for measure. Kiss for kiss. Stroke for stroke. She spread herself beneath him like a feast before the prodigal and welcomed him into her.

  Love for her welled in his chest, and in that moment, Robert determined to give her everything. To worship at her breasts and humble himself before her woman’s body, for he was truly lost. Against all wisdom and months of effort, he loved her. And Heaven help him, he could never tell her, but he could show her. With his body and his hands, he could give her the gift she claimed to crave, unworthy though he was to give it.

  He rose up over her, stroking deep and steady. Her hips lifted to meet him. His body tensed, but he held back as her contractions crested over him. He watched the flush rise from her breasts to her face, treasured the wonder in her eyes as she called out his name in her passion. No woman would ever be more beautiful or desirable to him.

  Still throbbing and hard within her, he let her rest. Each panting breath brought a small twinge from her sleek heat, and Robert found his control slipping. He bent to suck at her breast. Juliana arched at the pressure on the sensitive tip. Beyond restraint, Robert thrust. Pleasure cascaded over him in a never-ending cycle of ecstasy and yearning. “Juliana,” burst from his mind and heart as he poured himself into her.