A bead of sweat rolled down Rose’s forehead. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. She exhaled slowly. “Very well. But I would complete this journey as swiftly as possible so I can meet with the king and then return to Jason.”
“Agreed.” Rand hooked his arm in hers and led her down the path.
Though Rose was anxious to have her audience with the king, the uncertainty of his intent was troubling. She could only surmise that King Edward had made a decision regarding wardship of her son’s estate. When Bertram had died over two years ago, Jason inherited the Ayleston title, and all the coin and vast lands it entailed. But until Jason reached his majority, Edward could grant wardship of the land to anyone.
As they approached the clearing where the others had already settled in the grass around a cold fire pit, Rand held back the low-hanging branches of a birch tree shading the narrow path. Rose gave Rand an absentminded smile of thanks. Deep in her thoughts, she did not see his startled look of pleasure.
After Rose settled on a log next to Alison, Rand sauntered away from the group and into a copse of trees.
Rose’s contemplation returned to her son. Last spring, as lady-in-waiting to Queen Eleanor, Rose gained the influence of the queen and finally won custody of her son. It was unusual, though not unheard of, for a woman to be granted guardianship of her son.
But the upcoming audience with the king complicated matters for Rose. She did not like the uncertainty that bloomed in her chest. She despised change and she had a feeling this change was not to the good of either her or her son.
Back near the shallow, rocky stream, in a daze, Rand crouched down and cupped water into his hands. A quiver of pleasure raced in his blood, thrumming in places he dared not think about, or he might embarrass himself. He took several deep drinks to soothe his parched throat, and then splashed some water over his heated face; neither sensation was the result of the unbearable weather.
Rose’s smile, rarely bestowed, touched him deeply. He chastised himself. It was just a smile, for God’s sakes, Rand thought, and one she did not even intentionally direct toward him.
Rand stood and wiped his hands on his surcoate. Sheltered by the trees, he gazed at Rose. Beside Lady Alison, who was dressed in amethyst silk, Rose looked drab in comparison, with her simple woolen brown surcoate and concealing headdress. But her garments, obviously meant to detract unwanted male attention, had the opposite effect on Rand.
The wimple and veil delineated her exquisite heart-shaped face, vivid blue eyes, and narrow, sloping nose. And her lips, plumper in the middle and turned up on the outer edges, were so temptingly kissable.
Throbbing heat shot to his shaft. He grumbled beneath his breath, pressing his erection down and willing it to subside. A warm breeze wafted across his face, carrying the scent of warm moldy earth and greenery.
The sooner he completed his assignment, the sooner he could return to his more pleasant duties, like hunting and fighting. Until then, he would stay as far away as possible from the beauteous Rose, given that close proximity in their daily interactions was necessitated by his duty to escort her safely to Westminster.
As dusk approached, the armored party and the two ladies they escorted on the ride southeast were sweaty, dirty, hungry, and exhausted. For two nights they had slept under the stars with only a small tent for the ladies.
Rand shouted back to those in the party, “Beyond the bend ahead lies a monastery! Tonight, we shall have warm food in our bellies and a roof over our heads!”
An exuberant shout went up. Rand, laughing, spurred his horse forward in anticipation of a hot meal and a soft pallet to rest his head upon. He pulled Leviathan up on the road before the gates and allowed the rest of the party to pass him. Sir Justin and young Will were in the rear, following Rose and Alison.
Rand surreptitiously observed Rose as she approached him. Her face was lined with fatigue and her shoulders drooped. Then, all of a sudden, a hare darted across the road in front of Rose’s horse. Evangeline reared up, kicking her white forelegs in fright. Rose slipped sideways. The mare came down with a hard jolt—Rose hanging precariously onto the saddle—and bolted past Rand before he could respond.
Rand’s heart plummeted to his toes, then bounced up into his throat. He spurred Leviathan, shouting to Justin, “I’ve got her!”
He bent over his gelding, his heart pounding in his ears as he galloped at full speed after Rose. He could just see her in the distance as the sun disappeared over the horizon.
If aught happened to Rose, he would never forgive himself.
Rand closed the distance between them. Rose still clung tenaciously to her speeding mare. His eyes bore into Rose’s narrow back, willing her to hold on a little longer. The fabric of her veil and full tunic skirts flapped behind her. Close enough now, Rand reached out to grab the palfrey’s trailing reins.
But at that moment her mare veered sharply to the right, throwing Rose. She screamed, the high-pitched sound a dagger thrust into Rand’s heart. She landed with a sickening thump. Rand jumped off Leviathan and rushed to her, feeling as though stone weighted his body down.
Rose lay crumpled facedown and unmoving at the bottom of the muddy roadside ditch.
“Noooo!” A scream of agony ripped from his throat.
He climbed down into the ditch, slipping in the mire in his haste. Falling to his knees, he lifted Rose into his lap and cradled her like a baby. She was not breathing. Nay, she was not dead, he would not let God take her.
Rand stared down at her pale, drawn face. There was a long shallow gash on her forehead. Blood poured down her temple, mixing with the mud covering the left side of her face. Rand slapped her cheek gently, but she did not respond. He called her name over and over and clutched her to him, willing his warmth and strength into her limp body. He prayed beneath his breath, his lips moving in fervent supplication.
“Help me! Someone, help me!” he shouted, his desperate plea echoing in the silent woods like a ghostly lament.
Suddenly, he was aged ten and three again, and was lying on the muddy bank of the river Garonne. His slender arms clutched his sister and he stared down at her face, a nearly exact though more feminine replica of his own. Her beautiful, long gold curls were matted to her head and her gray-green eyes stared blankly up at him in reproach.
She was so wet and cold and lifeless. But he kept holding her, refusing to let her go. Or believe she was dead.
Rand shook her hard, so hard her head snapped back, and called out her name over and over, “Juliana, Juliana!”
A great gulping inhalation seized her abruptly, making her chest rise and fall violently as she brought air into her lungs.
Rand, blinking, stared down as Juliana’s small face faded away and Rose’s eyes snapped open. A sudden euphoria filled him and made him light-headed with relief.
Rose’s clouded, pain-filled gaze searched his. Her voice scratchy, she asked, “Who is Juliana?”
Rand stiffened and shuttered his eyes to keep her from delving too deeply and discovering the pain he carried inside. But her eyelids drooped down and slowly closed. Her breathing slowed.
The pounding of hooves on the road behind him reminded him they were alone in the countryside at night. He needed to get Rose back to the safety of the monastery and have someone examine her. He had yet to know how seriously injured she was.
“Sir Rand!” Justin shouted and pulled his roan gelding up beside the other horses grazing alongside the road.
Rand lifted Rose gently in his arms and stood up, his mail clinking. “Over here, Justin. Rose took a spill from her horse and needs immediate care.”
Rand scrambled up the bank and handed Rose up to Justin so Rand could mount his horse.
Once mounted, Rand sidled up next to him. “Give her to me.”
Staring intently at Rose, Rand did not see Justin’s startled gaze at his leader’s possessive tone. Rand was oblivious to everything but seeing Rose safely into the care of the monastery infirmary.
<
br /> Rand sat on the stool in the small austere cell and stared at Rose. She lay in the narrow bed, chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. A bulky bandage was wrapped around her forehead, and her hair trailed loose down her shoulders.
Not again, he swore. It could not be happening again. First Juliana, then his mother, and now Rose, too?
He lunged up and swallowed a groan as his lower back twinged from sitting so long on the stool. He paced away, swung back and stared down at her. A single candle on the chest beside the bed glimmered on her pale complexion, and delicate eyelids. His gaze bore into her, willing her to wake, to move, to do something to assure him she was going to be all right.
As if hearing his plea, Rose moaned softly and her eyes flickered.
Rand took two steps to the door and called out, “Sister Margareta!” He ducked his head out the short, narrow door frame and hollered again, “Sister Margareta!”
“Hush, my son.” The rosy-cheeked sister hustled inside the chamber. “’Tis loud enough to frighten the dead.”
He turned back and gestured to Rose, his voice a whisper. “Lady Ayleston. She’s waking.”
Rose clutched her head, patting the linen bandage. She tried to sit up and then fell back on the bed with a groan.
Sister Margareta sidled around him. “Easy, milady.” The nun’s pale, slender hand gently touched Rose’s shoulder. “Don’t try to move. You took quite a blow to your head. We have been very worried about you.”
Rose murmured, “We?”
“Aye, your young knight. Sir Rand Montague.”
“He is not my—”
Rand rubbed his chest. “Rose, you are awake. God be praised.”
Rose stared up at him in bewilderment with her crystal blue eyes. “Oh, God, my body aches. What happened to me? Where am I?”
He frowned. “Do you not remember?”
“Nay.” Her dark red eyebrows dipped down in puzzlement. “The last thing I recall was eating a repast of bread and cheese when we stopped for dinner.”
“That was earlier today. We arrived at the gates of the monastery to stop for the night, when your horse bolted. I caught up to you but your horse threw you into a roadside gully. You must have hit your head on a rock or branch or something.” Rand moved to her side and touched her bandaged head. “How do you feel? Are you in much pain?”
Rose turned away from his touch. “My head is pounding, my eyes are blurry, and my body aches everywhere.”
Rand tried not to let her rebuff offend him. She had not always despised his touch.
“Any dizziness?” Sister Margareta chimed in.
“Aye. When I sat up.”
“It is as I told your young knight. The blow you received to your head shall cause you some discomfort and pain. I’d like you to rest for about a sennight before you resume your journey.”
A ripple of concern lodged in his chest. “I don’t understand, Sister. I thought you said she was going to be all right. Need I be worried? How serious is her injury if you wish to keep her here for a sennight?”
“I don’t believe there is cause for alarm, my lord. But just to be sure the blow to her head caused no serious, lasting harm, I would like her to remain here for a few days. Also, her fall caused severe bruising on her hip and shoulder. As soon as her headache and dizziness subside, and she feels well enough, you may continue on your journey.”
Rose whispered, “You need not worry I shall delay the journey any longer, Rand. I shall not give Edward a reason to reprimand you for failing to do your duty in a timely manner.”
When she made to rise, Rand gently eased her back down. He could not believe she thought his concern was because of the journey’s delay and not worry for her good health. “Don’t move, Rose. You are going nowhere till the good sister grants you permission to leave this bed. I’ll send Edward word of your injury. He’ll understand that our late arrival is unavoidable.” Rand understood her distrust of men, but Rose had known him for a long time and knew him better than that. How could she ever believe him capable of doing aught to endanger her welfare?
“I shall leave you to your rest now, Rose. As soon as you recover, we leave for Westminster.”
Rose looked so lost and vulnerable. Guilt reared its twisted, ugly head, mixing with Rand’s feelings of disappointment and regret. He wanted Rose, but it could never be. His duty was clear. Golan was soon to be her husband and responsible for her welfare.
Rose’s eyes blurred again, so the brief shadow she caught in Rand’s gaze must have been an illusion, for that roguish grin appeared, dimples deepening. Rather, two ridiculous grins, her vision doubling his image. She eased her eyes closed, her pounding head a misery she would not wish on anyone. Sister Margareta, bless her, gave Rose a hot chamomile infusion sweetened with honey for her aching head. Then the nun slipped out of the cell, leaving the candle alit on the table by the bed.
As Rose drifted off to sleep, a memory surfaced of Rand leaning over her, his voice agonized, calling out for a woman named Juliana.
Chapter Four
Five days later, Rose sat on a bench in the monastery’s ornamental garden. Flowers of every color filled the garden with their heavenly aroma. The musky scent intertwined with sweet-smelling honeysuckle, which hung on a lattice on the garden wall at her back. Rand sat opposite her, propped against a bench made of a grass-covered earthen mound. An illuminated book lay open in his lap.
At Sister Margareta’s instigation, Rand was practically forced to keep Rose company by reading to her. The nun chose a French romance from the scriptorium about a brave knight who rescues his ladylove—a woman he has loved from afar for many years—from the tyranny of an evil baron.
Other than the occasional birdcall, Rose heard naught but the husky timber of Rand’s voice. The deep, vibrating tenor resonated within Rose like a forgotten caress. Enthralled, she searched his face. His firm lips moved in a breathless whisper, his high cheekbones prominent with the intensity of some strong emotion.
An ache surged up inside Rose’s chest, yearning for what could have been. The heroic story and Rand’s reaction triggered in her a memory of the girl who once adored him. Before he left for the Crusade and she met and married Bertram Harcourt. Before her husband revealed his true depraved nature and shattered her innocence.
Now only bitterness resided within her heart. There were no gallant knights in this harsh world, such as the fictional Sir Lance in the story Rand was reading. Women were mere chattel to be used by greedy, ambitious, lecherous men. Except men treated their chattel better than their easily expendable wives.
Rand was an example of the lechery of men. He used one woman after another in the pursuit of his lusty appetites. A secret part of her realized she was being too harsh, but then she’d have to acknowledge her own complicity in succumbing to a night of temptation in Rand’s arms.
Rand’s voice in the background, Rose drifted back into the past. It was several months after her marriage, and Rand had returned from the Crusade to inform her Alex was dead—though later it turned out Alex was instead imprisoned in a Mamluk fortress.
She was devastated at the news, and still numb from learning her husband’s true evil nature. Feeling lost and vulnerable, she desperately wanted to discover what it was like to be cherished as a woman. And Rand was there for her, their shared grief a bond that only drew them closer. They made love, one night of passion and surrender. But there was no love involved, only grief and animal lust.
As she returned from her reverie, her eyes alighted on Rand. They never spoke of that night. But she did not doubt that, to him, she was just one more of his countless conquests, like the pretty servant at Ayleston Castle. Rose’s face heated as she remembered his torrid embrace of Lisbeth the night before their departure.
But what of the other woman whose name he called out when he pulled Rose from the ditch? The agony in his voice had been palpable.
“Who is Juliana?” The question slipped out before she could contain it.
Rand stopped reading and slowly closed the leather-bound manuscript. He cocked his head. “What do you know about Juliana?”
Since she had awoken from her fall, Rose had been unable to stop thinking about the woman. Surely it was not jealousy that tightened in her breast? Nay. The feeling was simply curiosity.
Rose shrugged. To keep from twisting her hands, she clutched the seat of the bench tightly. “You called out for her the other day when I tumbled from my palfrey. Do you not remember?”
He did not answer but asked her another question. “How can you remember aught when you were rendered insensible?” His right eyebrow arched in lazy inquiry.
“I don’t know. The memories are hazy. But I remember feeling as though I were watching from a distance as you held me in your arms and cried out for Juliana. So who is she?”
Rand leaned back against the grass seat. “Mayhap it was just a dream.”
“Nay. It was not a dream. The memory is too vivid to be something I conjured in my dreams.”
Rand stared at her, not answering, his gaze speculative.
For some reason Rose persisted. Normally she avoided confrontation and used cunning to get what she wanted. “Why do you avoid answering my question, Rand? Are you embarrassed for some reason? Is she a woman you bedded?”
Rand flinched as though shot with a barbed arrow, and his voice was as sharp. “Enough, Rose.” She watched his green eyes dim to a muted gray. “You know not of what you speak. Juliana was my sister.”
Rose gasped aloud in horror. “Oh, Rand. Forgive me. I did not know. I mean, Alex told me you had a twin sister who died. But I never knew her name, or the circumstances of her death.”
She reached her hand out to touch Rand’s arm in commiseration, but she caught herself and dropped it back to her side.
With his free hand, Rand pushed himself up from the bench and stood. “Alex told you about Juliana?”
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