Johanna tried to stand; she swore she did. "I cannot rise," she breathed. "You must help me."
The housekeeper came to sit beside her on the cot. Wrapping an arm around Johanna's waist she pressed her former charge's head into her shoulder. For just a moment Helewise rocked her, crooning just as she'd done when Johanna was a babe.
"Helewise!" Katel's impatient call rose from the courtyard floor. "Hie you and bring her down. It is time."
Glancing at the window, Helewise huffed in deep dislike. "How he slavers to get his hands upon what was once your sire's. God be praised he had sense enough to keep this a private affair, given that your father is barely cold."
Johanna loosed a dry sob at this reminder.
Helewise pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You will survive this," she said softly. "You are my strong and fiery girl, who is always brave where I feel weak and powerless. Vow to me that no matter what he does to you, you'll not let him take your spirit from you."
For some reason Johanna could not fathom, Helewise's words made that spark of anger in her grow. In its heat she found, if not strength, comfort. Even Helewise knew that this marriage to Katel was an awful, evil thing. How could her father have demanded that they wed when Rob loved her?
Guilt shot through her at this thought. Her father was dead. It was wrong to think ill of him. Her thoughts slipped to Rob. Better than any other on this earth Rob knew the sort of man Katel was. How could he have left her to this fate?
Anger grew yet again. This time, its heat sent the illusion of power through her. Rob had better come. If he did not she would never forgive him.
"God be damned," Katel sneered from the doorway. His new tunic was a maroon samite over which he wore a summer mantle of gray. A braided chain, loaned to him by the goldsmith until his own were finished, lay across his chest. Atop its clasp sat a great round piece of amber to match his new tunic's golden trim. "Here you sit, Helewise, when I have called that it is time to leave. I will not tolerate such insubordination in my servants. You are dismissed. Be gone by week's end."
Johanna's back stiffened in surprise at this. Who did he think he was, telling her housekeeper that she must go? The anger in her expanded, eating up all that ached in her. By God, it felt good to hate. Her eyes narrowed as she plotted some way to see he paid for this.
"Such was my intention, Katel," Helewise replied. There was nothing of her usual show of meekness in her voice. "I will not be in a house over which you are the head."
Shock dashed across his features then died. He shrugged. "We are in agreement, then. Now bring her, or you'll not stay the night to witness her bedding He turned on his heel and left the bedchamber.
Johanna stared at Helewise. "I hate him," she breathed with every ounce of passion that lived in her.
"That's my fiery girl," the housekeeper replied in proud approval. "Come then."
Together, they rose and descended to the courtyard.
The Priory of Saint Anne
two hours past Terce
The feast of the Conversion of St Paul, 1197
"Johanna!" The shout echoed from the prioress's office. "Where are you?"
New fire took life in Johanna's cold, dead heart. "Rob?" she breathed. "Rob!" she shouted.
As joy exploded within her she lifted her heels. The priest and the farm laborers were holding the inner office door shut against Rob. She heard the crash of his shoulder against the panel.
"Let me by!" she screamed at them. "It's Rob!"
"You cannot go with him, child," the priest told her, yet straining to hold the door shut. "To do so is sin."
There was a brief pause in the battering. Footsteps tapped on the office’s tile floor, receding away from the inner door. "Take her now," the chaplain cried. The two serfs released the door then grabbed her by the arms.
"Rob," Johanna shouted as she writhed between them. "They are forcing me away!"
Although she fought them, the two men steadily dragged her down the corridor toward the chapel. She peered hopelessly over her shoulder. The office door was yet closed with no sign of Rob. Ahead of her the prioress was waiting at the chapel's door. Sister Porter had the bar in hand.
"Do not let them keep me here!" Johanna screamed to Rob.
One of them slipped in the spilled fat. As he stumbled, his grip loosened. Johanna wrenched her arm free and turned on the other. With every ounce of strength she owned, she kicked him. The man barked in pain and released her to grab his damaged leg.
Once again there was a crash, and the old priest stumbled aside as the door flew open. Rob stepped into the corridor. He wore a thick brown tunic with a soft leather vest atop it. Despite his hooded cloak, traveling had left his hair badly in need of combing. His face was reddened with the cold, and he looked not to have slept for several days.
Never had he looked more beautiful to her. Johanna threw herself against him, latching herself tightly to him that no man could part them. He laughed and wrapped his arms around her, his embrace no less tight.
"I thought you were dead," she cried into the curve of his neck. His skin was warm against hers. "When you did not come two days ago, I thought I had failed."
"I was here," he said, lowering his head to press his lips against her cheek. "She would not let me see you."
Of a sudden a touch of his lips on her cheek wasn't enough for her. Johanna turned her head and pressed her mouth to his. With her lips she begged Rob to prove to her this was no dream, that he was indeed alive and that he had come for her. Rob's arms tightened in response to her request. His kiss deepened until Johanna gasped against the heat he made in her. The joy of loving him, of desiring him, tumbled through her, feeding her starving senses and making her hungry for more. She rose slightly, letting her body flow into his in that wondrous unity. Rob drew a sharp breath at this then his mouth slashed across hers. Johanna's knees weakened with desire.
"Do not!" the prioress screamed from the corridor's opposite end. "Stop, I say," the churchwoman shouted, the angry tapping of her stick growing louder with each breath. "Adulterers! Sinners!"
"Stop, sinners!" the priest echoed.
This only made Johanna hold Rob tighter. Adultery or not, she would let no one separate them. Not today, or ever.
Rob lifted his mouth from hers. "It is not adultery to kiss one's own wife," he replied calmly.
"Wife?" Johanna breathed. Astonishment was followed by spiraling pleasure. "It was true, then? What we did was no lie?"
"It was no lie," Rob told her. The gray of his eyes was so soft with love for her that it took away her breath. "You love, are a bigamist, but no longer. The one who pretended to be your husband has suffered the fate he planned for us."
Tears filled Johanna's eyes. This was no fantasy. She had succeeded, and Rob had not abandoned her.
"Deceiver! Her husband is Katel le Espicer." The prioress came to a halt alongside them. Behind her stood her chaplain. The menservants had thought the better of this whole matter and remained at the far end of the cloister corridor. "It was Master Katel who brought her here demanding that I give her sanctuary against you, who had beaten her. To do so, she committed herself to Christ."
"I did not!" Johanna retorted, shocked that the prioress would lie about such a thing.
"I did not think you had," Rob replied, his mouth lifting into a smile.
He stepped back far enough from her to retrieve a fold of parchment from his vest. This he handed to Mother Sybil. "You'll pardon me my lady prioress, if I do not tarry to explain my rights to you. The abbot has done a much better job than I ever could.
As the prioress stared at the great disk of wax that hung from the skin by a thread, Rob placed his arm around Johanna and turned her toward the office door. His hand at the small of her back urged her to haste. They hurried through the small chamber into the courtyard.
Johanna stared in surprise at the dozens of mounted armed men who filled the space between the priory's simple wooden walls. At the troop's head rode a k
night astride a tall brown warhorse. The nobleman wore full mail, the helmet and mail coif on his head obscuring almost the whole of his face.
"Are you so wealthy that you can afford to hire an army?" she asked in awe as Rob swept her toward the only riderless horse in the courtyard. A pretty chestnut color, it was as tall as the knight's destrier but lacked the heaviness of muscle, a merchant's mount, not a warrior's.
Rob shook his head and laughed. "Nay, not at all. At least I wasn't yesterday. When we combine our estates the matter may be different. Come love, I'd be gone from here before the prioress finishes reading what lies in that missive."
He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her into a sideways seat on the saddle then mounted behind her. Johanna caught her arms around his waist. Pulling herself into the shelter of his arms, she rested her head against his shoulder. When the nobleman saw they were mounted he gave a call that set his men into motion. Saddle leather creaked, harnesses jangled. Horses danced as they turned. As each man exited the priory's gate, he spurred his horse to its fastest speed. Rob turned his horse and followed the other men out of reach of the Church.
The quick pace they kept made all conversation impossible until they slowed near the crossroads. Johanna looked up at Rob. "We are not married then?"
If there was disappointment in her at this, so too, was there a touch of relief. Had her marriage with Katel been a lie then her son was now a bastard. She did not want that title for her child when neither she nor Peter had had any choice in his creation.
"Abbot Eustace believes we are," Rob replied. "However, it may well take a hundred pounds and years of bickering among churchmen to verify it. Against the possibility he was wrong, the abbot could not command the prioress to release you, had you indeed offered yourself to God. But I could not tolerate the thought of being separated from you for another day."
"Ah," she breathed in pained understanding. Her thoughts turned, seeking a way to shield her son from the sting of bastardy. "Why spend the coin on proving us married? If Katel is dead, then I am a widow in the eyes of the world. Let us stand before the church door and repeat what we said so long ago."
Aye, this would shield Peter from the world but only until her death. If she and Rob had children between them, they, not Peter, would inherit what her father and Rob left them. That was, unless Rob adopted Peter as his own.
Johanna sighed. As much as she loved Rob she couldn't imagine him doing so, not after all the hatred Katel had shown him. Nor could she blame Rob for it. What man didn't want to put his own children first?
"Love," Rob said, glancing down at her, "if that is your will, then I bow to it, but we are already wed. I have waited sixteen years to be with you. I crave the simple joys of marriage. I would eat at a table with you sitting beside me as a wife does her husband. I would retire at night with you, sleep beside you, then wake in the morn to find you yet there. Will you bid me wait until the day we again trade vows before you grant me this?"
His words shot through her, reminding her of the pleasures she'd known both in his arms and in their few joinings. Her heart took to racing in excitement while searing heat filled the core of her being. Wait another day? She did not wish to wait another hour. A deep shiver shot through her.
Thinking her chilled, he shifted to pull her closer so he might tuck his fur-fined mantle around them both, cocooning them against the day's snapping cold. Their nearness only fed her longing for him. Johanna turned her head on his shoulder, needing to feel his skin against hers. Ever so lightly, she pressed her lips to his throat, drawing her mouth upward until she kissed the spot just below his ear.
Rob drew a swift breath in reaction. "May I take that as a sign that you'll not deny me?" His voice deepened with the passion she made in him.
"You may, indeed," she breathed into his ear.
"Dear God, but we still have hours to go. I vow I will die if you intend to do this all the way home. God be praised. My brother has come to rescue me."
Johanna straightened, shocked from her lust by his words. The knight who headed the troop now rode alongside them. She looked from the nobleman to Rob then frowned in confusion. "You have no brother. You were Ralph Attegreen's only son."
The smile Rob offered her was chagrined. "Nay love, I am bastard born."
"You are not a bastard!" she retorted in old habit.
He shook his head. "Aye, I am and so I have known since my mother's death. That I did not wish to acknowledge it does not make it untrue."
"Apparently, this is a common experience among bastards," the knight commented with some humor. His English was without accent.
Rob laughed. "Johanna, this is my half-brother, Richard, Lord Meynell, as kind and caring a man as I will ever know."
"Or, lend money to," Lord Meynell replied. There wasn't much to see of the man's face beneath the concealment of his metal coif and his helm, but Johanna caught the glint of gold in his brown eyes. Then, he smiled at her, setting deep creases to either side of his mouth.
"He has your smile!" Johanna cried in startled recognition.
"Nay," the nobleman said with a quiet laugh, "we share our father's smile, as do all the rest of our half brothers. I am glad to meet you, Johanna of Stanrudde." His gaze shifted to Rob. "Now that we are at the crossroads I have come to bid you fare-thee-well, not to see you again until the summer months."
Rob nodded to him. "I will offer you another round of thanks for all you've done and bid you Godspeed and good journey," he replied. "Have you decided yet?"
"On whether I will tell the others of your existence?" The nobleman cocked his head to the side to peer at his half-brother around the helmet's nose piece. "Mayhap I will keep you to myself for a time. Were Rannulf to get wind that he was connected to a man of substance, he'd be in a flurry to drain your coffers dry, borrowing against the building he's doing at Upwood."
Lord Meynell laughed at this private jest then turned his gaze on Johanna, once more. "Again, Mistress Johanna, I am glad to have made your acquaintance."
"And, I yours," she replied, awed at discovering Rob's noble connections.
The nobleman set his spurs to his brown steed to join his men, who were already filing to the left at the crossroads. In a few moments, they were gone from sight. Stanrudde lay directly ahead, but yet a long ride distant.
As Johanna settled herself more comfortably in the saddle before Rob, he began to talk of his life since their parting. She tried to concentrate, but her thoughts kept drifting to her son. How could there be happiness for her when it meant shame and heartbreak for her child?
Stanrudde
One hour past Sext
The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, January, 1197
There was no one waiting before the abbey when Johanna and Rob rode past its gate. Teased into it by Rob's tale of Katel's death at the hands of the crowd, she glanced around the market field. As she shuddered at so horrible a fate, she reminded herself of how far reaching the evil of Katel's plot had been. Theobald now occupied the lower level of Stanrudde's tower, charged with the murder of Rob's agent, Hamalin. Hamalin had fought hard to keep his life, injuring Theobald and killing Watt in the process of his dying.
She sighed and stared at the houses as they made their way up the coopers' lane toward the chandlers' enclave. This morning, the workshop windows were open. Tradesmen and their apprentices were hard at work turning wood and metal into barrels. Stanrudde's folk once again trod their lanes in safety. Children shouted and raced down the alleyways, dodging the slop thrown by maids from the upper windows of houses.
Johanna stared at her father's tall house as Rob turned his mount into the courtyard. This day, the split stones that made up its walls sparked a glassy black in the fierce and frigid winter sun. The worry and sorrow in her deepened. Too much of the past was bound to this house, and she wanted no more to do with it, but there were things to be attended to before she could bid this part of her life adieu, not the least of which was finding some way to resol
ve Peter's future. Together, she and Rob had decided to sell the house and the spice trade. The right man could return her father’s trade to its past vitality. So too, did she need to hire an agent to look after her sire's properties as the majority of them lay within Stanrudde's walls.
Rob dismounted. Johanna slipped off the saddle into his embrace, her arms clasped about his neck. As she settled against him, her hunger returned, bringing with it the need to renew her acquaintance with his body. The fire that woke in her helped to ease her worries a little.
Rob caught her mouth with his. Johanna did not deny him. As his kiss deepened, sending those wondrous waves of heat through her once again, his fingers worked to remove the nun's wimple that covered her head.
"Blasphemer!" The man's deep and outraged cry echoed around the enclosed courtyard. "Do you dare to kiss that holy sister?"
Johanna tore away from Rob and whirled in his arms to face this new challenge. "I am no nun," she protested even before she knew who it was that would now accuse them of wrongdoing.
At the corner of the forebuilding stood a small monk, face wizened and hair as white as snow. She stared for a moment as the years peeled from the man's face. "Master Colin," she cried in recognition.
"Why is it none of you can remember that I am now a brother?" the former tradesman complained with a quick laugh. "Arthur I can understand, for he has never had the best of memories. But you, Johanna, you are sharper than that."
Johanna smiled at his jesting chide. "My pardon, Brother Colin. What are you doing here?" she demanded of him.
"Among other things I have been waiting for you," he replied, taking a few steps toward her then stopping. Beneath thick white brows, concern flickered to life in his dark eyes. "I would speak to you if you will allow it."
"Why would I not?" she asked, surprised.
"I had the notion you were not so fond of me."
A Love For All Seasons Page 31