by Evie North
A PERFECT KNIGHT by EVIE NORTH
(KNIGHTS OF PASSION SERIES 2)
Copyright © 2013, Evie North
KINDLE EDITION
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A PERFECT KNIGHT by EVIE NORTH
(KNIGHTS OF PASSION SERIES 2)
A PERFECT KNIGHT
(KNIGHTS OF PASSION SERIES 2)
1192AD
The troubadour sang on, a plaintive song about love and loss.
Lady Yolanda heard the words but not the voice that sang them; she looked into space at the past, not at the man who sang in the present. Her thoughts were with her husband, who’d died on Crusade and now lay buried under a hot sky while Yolanda gazed out at the English rain.
Simon finished the song, and the room fell silent. Yolanda’s ladies glanced at each other but said nothing. After a moment Yolanda sighed, and then turned to him with her sweet smile. He felt his heart ache, worse than yesterday. He had been here at Castle Arbuthnot for four weeks now, and each day, each hour, he fell more deeply in love with her.
And she did not even see him. Not as a man anyway.
Simon knew he was young and handsome, a man who had caught the eye of many a woman, some of them grander ladies than Yolanda. In this time, when so many knights and men were away fighting Saladin for the return of Jerusalem, he had found many conquests of his own among the lonely ranks of their women left behind.
But not Lady Yolanda. She seemed immune to his charms.
“Have you sung for Queen Eleanor, Simon?” she asked him now, her dark eyes half shielded by her long lashes. Her skin was like cream, her lips red roses and her hair . . . Simon’s poetry failed him. Her hair was long and dark, usually hidden by her veil, but once she had him sing to her in her private chamber and he saw one of her ladies brushing it. Her hair was so long it reached below her hips in black waves that he would give anything to bury his face in.
He loved her.
He was lost.
“Once, my lady,” he said, in answer to her question. “Her court is dedicated to amour, and I sang to her and her ladies. She is old now but still very beautiful, very elegant.”
Yolanda smiled, that far away look in her eyes again. “And what of King Henry, her dead husband, what was he like?”
“He had a fiery temper, my lady.”
The women laughed but Yolanda frowned.
“No, I mean . . . did he love Eleanor?”
Simon paused. Henry had loved Eleanor once, their love had been legendary, but later on he preferred younger mistresses—even his son’s betrothed was not safe from his lecherous hands. Perhaps something of his thoughts passed across his features because Yolanda glanced away, back to the window and the rain outside.
“Are all men unfaithful?” she asked. “Is there no perfect love, in the end?”
The words were out before Simon could stop them; the shock had loosened his tongue. “Was your husband unfaithful, my lady? How could any man betray you?”
Yolanda turned to him, a little shocked herself at his plain-speaking, while her ladies gasped. Her dark eyes slid over his face and it was as if she saw him for the first time. His blue eyes and fair hair, his handsome face with the strong jaw that prevented it from being too boyish.
Colour rose in her cheeks and she looked down at her stitchery. “You are impertinent, sir,” she said sharply.
He was on his feet at once, bowing low, begging her pardon. Then he tried to come and kiss her hand, but tripped up on a low stool on the floor and sprawled among all the cushions and the ladies laughed at him. Yolanda looked up, and she was smiling too, despite the tears in her eyes.
“Foolish man,” she scolded him. “Go away now. I have heard enough about love for one day.”
But he felt her eyes linger on him as he bowed again and left, and it lightened his heart. For the first time Simon dared to wonder whether he might one day hold the lovely Lady Yolanda in his arms, take her to his bed, and show her what it was to truly love.
***
Yolanda watched the rain.
Word had come in the autumn that her husband had been dead for six months. Half a year he had been dead and she had only then heard of it! Now it was winter and she still could hardly believe he was never coming home. Her life seemed suspended. He had ruled her since she married him ten years ago, at thirteen, and she had never known another man, nor felt herself anything other than his chattel. His castle, his servants, his beasts, his wife. They were all his to do with as he willed.
And now he was gone and she was alone, and every day she found herself doing things, saying things, that she had never thought to do. The castle was hers to rule, the servants must be given their orders, the beasts must be cared for, and the wife . . . The wife was now the master at Arbuthnot Castle.
And yet despite all that it was as if she’d still been in a dream. Suspended and waiting. Until today, when the troubadour—Simon; his name was Simon—when Simon blurted out those words to her and she looked at him, saw him, and something stirred in her heart.
He was handsome, she knew that, all her ladies sighed over him. But he was also manly, with his strong jaw and broad shoulders. And he was young, perhaps very near her own age of twenty-three. It would be strange to hold a man in her arms who was her own age, rather than a husband who was so much older.
Sir Edward Arbuthnot had been a grizzled middle aged man when she married him, full of nothing but fighting and war, and when he went on the Crusades with King Richard, she had kissed him goodbye and wished him safe return, and yet she’d been secretly glad he was going.
But she hadn’t expected him not to return.
She hadn’t imagined for a moment that might happen.
He’d left his steward in charge, and when word came that Sir Edward had died in Cyprus, and been buried there, the steward had expected to carry on as before. Yolanda might even have allowed that to happen, but one day she caught him abusing a young kitchen boy who had burnt the roasting meat, and she dismissed him.
He’d laughed in her face, not believing her capable, and she had called on some of her more trusted servants to throw him bodily from the castle gates. She’d had to scream at them, in the end, to make them do her will. No one had believed her capable. For so long Sir Edward had ruled her and everyone else that she had become a shadow in her own life.
After that, her people looked at her with more respect. They accepted that Yolanda was now the master of Arbuthnot Castle.
And yet there was something else, something beyond her control, something no one seemed able to help her with. No one she dared to ask, it was so shameful.
Until today, when she saw Simon the troubadour, and thought: Perhaps he is the one.
Simon had believed her husband was unfaithful to her, but he had misunderstood her words. Yolanda’s husband had remained true to her until he died, but his love was a suffocating, jealous thing. But all her life she’d hoped that somewhere there was a love so perfect it would live forever, the sort of love she’d believed Eleanor and Henry had, and that one day she would find it, too.
Except that Edward had made that impossible.
Involuntarily her hand slid do
wn to her waist and then lower, feeling the outline of the metal casing through her skirts.
The chastity belt.
In the weeks before he left for the Crusades, Edward had seemed preoccupied. A man she had never seen before had come to visit them several times, and the two men were often shut up together. Taskill, that was his name, was disliked by the servants and Yolanda alike, and when she looked into his eyes she saw nothing but blackness.
“I have heard he can perform feats of magic,” one of her maids whispered, with a glance over her shoulder. “Some of the Crusaders go to him to ensure their ladies will not cuckold them while they are away.”
“Sir Edward would not do that,” Yolanda gasped. “He knows I would never cuckold him.”
Nevertheless fear seized hold of her. She knew Edward well, and it was not so much his fear of her straying that drove him, but his insatiable need to control her, even while he was away.
The day he left for the Crusades Sir Edward had come to her with a strangely smooth metal girdle with a lock on it, and odd magical signs carved into it, and despite her pleas and protests, had locked her into it. She would never forget the satisfied expression on his face.
“There, my love,” he had said in his gruff, gravelly voice. “Now you will be mine forever.”
Terrified of the thing that now encased her, struggling not to scream, she had whispered, “But you will come back, Edward? You will come back and free me?”
Edward had smiled but his eyes were cold. “You must pray every day that I return to you, Yolanda. Because if I do not . . .”
“I cannot be locked up forever! Please, leave me the key, Edward! Tell me where is this man, this Taskill? Surely he can give me a key?”
“Taskill made only one key,” he said with satisfaction.
Shocked, she stared up at him in silence.
“Whether I am dead or alive, you are still my wife, my love, and the chastity belt will ensure you never betray me by giving yourself to another man. When you married me you became my property and so it will remain even unto the grave.”
***
Simon had heard the whispers.
He tried not to listen to the gossip spread by Yolanda’s ladies but it was difficult when they spoke right under his nose while he was practising his music.
“He locked her up before he left. A warlock came and fashioned the evil thing, and she will never be free.”
Was it true? Had Sir Edward Arbuthnot used magic on his wife to keep her his, even after death? From what Simon had heard of the man he would not be surprised if it was true. The Lady Yolanda was brave and beautiful, and it was a terrible thing if she was suffering. Besides, Simon loved her and wanted to make her his, and how could he do that if the ladies’ gossip was true?
He’d noticed lately that when he played the lute for her she smiled at him, and once she’d touched his hand with hers, a brush of her fingertips upon his skin. Simon was aware of the courtly love of Queen Eleanor’s circle, the stilted declarations and promises, the pledges not to despoil their love with physical contact, and the setting of the object of their love upon a pedestal.
Although Simon liked to believe love was a little beyond the earthly, he was also a man whose thoughts were often carnal. The son of a poor knight who had struggled to rise above his poverty, he’d also worked hard to become the man he was, singing his songs in the great halls to the great people of the land. He knew that it was all very nice and romantic to put a woman on a pedestal but in reality such a love could not last. He loved Yolanda but he also saw her as a flesh and blood woman, someone who needed not stilted promises but a warm pair of arms. If she was his he would hold her and make love to her, their bodies pressed together, their flesh melded as one. Pedestals were all very well but in his mind Yolanda would be much better off in his bed.
And he was beginning to believe that she was falling in love with him, too. He didn’t dare to hope too much but sometimes when she spoke to him, smiled at him, he thought that anything was possible. That this son of a poor knight might one day win the hand of the beautiful lady of Arbuthnot Castle.
***
Yolanda wished she could ask Simon to play for her more often, but as it was she ordered him to her side for many hours of the day. The ladies smirked and thought her a besotted fool, but she didn’t care.
He was kind and handsome and he loved her; she could see it in his blue eyes. This was love as she had never experienced it, certainly not from Sir Edward. When she listened to the romances that Queen Eleanor had made so popular she wanted the kind of love they promised. A knight who would love her so much that he would dedicate his life to her.
Yolanda wanted to kiss Simon and tell him she loved him. She wanted to rest her head upon his shoulder and feel his arm strong and warm about her. But then she would remember the metal girdle. How could any man want her when she was locked up? With no way of escape? When he realised what had been done to her, surely Simon would turn away in disgust?
And then one evening in the great hall, Simon sang to her a song about a brave knight who goes on a quest to find a treasure for his adored lady, to show the depth of his love for her, and when he finished he came and knelt before her and said in a low voice: “I am your man, my lady. Give me a quest like the knight in the song so that I can prove my love to you.”
And she knew then that if anyone could save her and give her back her life then it was Simon.
***
“Simon?”
Simon knew he must be dreaming because he could hear her voice, and that could not be. His small room was his alone, and he did not share it, although some of the ladies had hinted they would not be adverse.
“Simon!”
Someone was shaking him. Simon’s eyes opened wide and he sat up. And saw who it was.
“My lady, what are . . . ?”
She put a finger to her lips. Her hair was lying over her shoulder in a long plait and she wore a silken robe to cover herself. A candle sat on the floor by the door where she had placed it and in its light he could see she was agitated.
“My lady?” he said again, but this time in a whisper.
“I cannot sleep,” she said, shaking her head, her hands twisting in her lap. “You sing of love and devotion and all I can think of is my husband. I tried so hard to love him, to be as I thought a wife should be, but he wanted to possess me utterly. And his jealousy . . . if I should so much as glance at another man . . . He once whipped his manservant who was gazing at me too long.”
Simon blinked. He moved to cover her hand with his, knowing if he said or did the wrong thing she would run from him and never come back.
“I thought there must be something wrong with me. The romances I hear, the romances of Lady Eleanor’s court, tell me of perfect love, but my husband was not like that. And now you say that Lady Eleanor was not loved at the end, that King Henry looked elsewhere.”
His hand tightened on hers. “My lady,” he murmured. “Eleanor and Henry loved each other once but their love faded and grew stale. That does not mean there is no perfect love.”
She considered this.
“Can I speak plainly, Lady Yolanda?”
She nodded.
“I believe love should not be the pure, cold and distant love of my songs. It is hot and sweaty. Flesh pressed together, bodies moving to a rhythm. Mouths together, tongues tasting, the ache of need, the wave of desire that grows and grows until . . .” He smiled. “Until you reach the crest and suddenly all your lives are before you.”
She listened and then she frowned. “No,” she said. “You speak of physical love, Simon. That is something different altogether.”
He moved closer still.
“But it is both! Don’t you see? The bodies together, melding, and the hearts joined, and the minds aligned. Together it is perfection.”
She contemplated this a moment. She was playing with his hand, her fingers smoothing his flesh, and then touching the hard calluses made by his lu
te on his fingers and thumb. She spoke awkwardly.
“My husband made me his chattel. I have never been loved. Not in the way you describe.”
She looked up at him, and there was so much longing and sadness in her face that he was lost. Simon leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, gently, without passion. Her breath came out in a gasp, warming his skin, and then her hands came to rest on his shoulders. He realised then that of course he was naked and he’d quite forgotten about it.
Her lips clung, and he ran his tongue along them, tracing their shape and softness. She made a little moan and he kissed her harder, and this time there was passion. She responded, her body against his, and he could feel her breasts and the hard nubs at their peaks.
Triumph surged through him. He reached to fondle one plump mound, his thumb passing over the tight little nipple again and again, until she trembled with desire.
“Is this what it feels like?” she murmured. “To love?”
“Yes, this is what it feels like.”
Carefully he slid down her robe and kissed each inch of skin he bared. She tasted sweet. With his hand he tilted her breast up to his mouth, and covered the peak, his tongue swirling around the nipple until she was squirming. Then he put his mouth fully over the hard bud and sucked.
“Simon,” she said. “Oh Simon.”
“Your beauty makes me bold, lady,” he said huskily.
“I feel . . . I want . . .”
She writhed against him, as if she had been starved of a man’s touch for far too long.
His hand rested on her thigh beneath her robe and then moved higher. And felt something that should not be there. Simon’s eyes widened and flew to hers, and saw that the sadness in them had returned.
“Yes. I wear a chastity belt,” she said bitterly. “My husband placed it upon me when he went to the Crusades so that no other man could enjoy me.”
He could not believe it. He had heard of such things happening but had thought they were mere myth. With shaking hands he stripped off her robe and beheld with his own eyes the barbaric metal girdle that hung from her waist, with a metal thong between her legs, covering her womanly parts, apart from a narrow opening for her to complete her bodily functions.