by Sara Bennett
Still she refused to speak, gray eyes wide in the flare of the candles.
“Lily, will you not trust me?”
It was foolish to ask it. He knew that as soon as the words were spoken. How could she trust him, when he had just shown himself incapable of listening to her without turning on her in fury? Yet he wanted her to trust him. His pride demanded it! His heart yearned for it.
For a long moment dark eyes gazed into gray, and then Lily gave a breathless laugh. She reached up with her free hand, hesitated, and then stroked his temple, smoothing back a lock of short dark hair.
“My lord, I have trusted you. More than you know.”
Her lips trembled as she smiled. It required all of Radulf’s self-control not to lean forward and taste them, to lose himself in the sweetness of her mouth. A terrible ache filled his chest.
This was more than want.
Madness, whispered the bitter skeptic inside him, but Radulf didn’t care. At that moment he would gladly have drowned himself in Lily’s eyes.
The abbot cleared his throat loudly.
With a sigh, Radulf leaned back to put some space between them, although he retained her hand. Lily’s eyes sparkled with tears.
“The hospitaler has come to take you to your room, lady,” the abbot said coolly. “You must be weary after your journey and in need of sleep. I have set aside a private room in my house for your use.”
“Thank you.” Lily glanced sideways at Radulf.
“The guest quarters will be our billet,” he answered her unspoken question.
Lily bowed her head and spoke calmly, only the slightest tremor betraying the depth of her feelings. “I am very tired. I would be glad to retire now.”
As she rose, Radulf also stood. He brought her hand to his lips with a murmured, “Sleep well, mignonne.”
Lily gasped at the feel of his warm mouth once more against her skin. The gleam in his eyes spoke of desire and possession, and of longing. This might be the last time she ever saw him, and the tears filling her eyes threatened to spill over her lashes and fall. His face blurred, and she blinked to clear her vision before she replied huskily.
“And you, my lord.”
As the hospitaler led her away, she did not turn. Trust me, Radulf had said. And the strange thing was, she had almost been prepared to do so. Until his anger, his inflexible stance on Vorgen, had made her see the danger of such an action. Like a game of chance, she would not know the outcome until it was too late.
And Lily could not afford to dice with her freedom, or mayhap her life.
Chapter 8
Bells rang from the church calling the monks to Compline, the last prayers of the day, as the hospitaler led Lily through a small courtyard. She paused, breathing deeply to calm herself. The dark vault of the sky above her was ablaze with stars, but tonight their beauty appeared cold and distant to Lily.
She shook her head, forcing back the urge to weep. When he knew the truth, Radulf would be glad that she had gone. He would hate her. But if she had deceived him, then she was being punished for it.
Lily took another gasping breath. Time enough later to grieve. She forced herself to concentrate, to look about properly for the first time.
There were several open archways leading from the little courtyard. In the moonlight beyond one she could see a walled herb garden, and through another the dark, angular shape of the gatehouse.
Her way out.
“My lady?”
The monk, a black shadow, was waiting patiently beside a wooden doorway. Lily hastened to follow.
Her room was narrow and plain, and contained a bed, a crucifix, and a fat candle. After some of her recent sleeping places, it seemed like a palace. When the hospitaler had gone, she sank down wearily on the pallet. She was very tired, but must not fall asleep. She would wait until everyone else slept and then she would find her mare in the stables, and ride away from here.
Away from Radulf.
Her heart ached, but what choice had she? The arguments, the questions kept running through her head, but there was only one answer. She must leave tonight and never see Radulf again.
Time passed slowly. Eventually the monastery grew very still. Lily imagined the Norman soldiers sleeping, Radulf too, his hard face made vulnerable. Once again tears swelled, only this time she allowed them to trickle down her cheeks. Their salt stung her lips, and with shaking fingers, Lily lifted one corner of her cloak to wipe them away. Something round and hard made a ridge in the lining.
The ring.
With difficulty, Lily tipped the golden circle into her palm. The hawk seemed to stare back at her from its black background, the red eye glinting in the candlelight. “‘I give thee my heart,’” she whispered.
In Lily’s eyes the ring had always stood for fairness and a just ruler, as well as the love her Viking mother bore her English father. Vorgen had stolen it for a time and subverted it into something mean and avaricious, but now it was Lily’s.
She had hoped that, through her, the ruby-eyed hawk would one day be seen again as the mark of a fair and just ruler. And that she would be that ruler. Could such dreams still come true, or was she doomed to run and hide for the rest of her life?
Lily turned the ring over in her fingers, testing the familiar weight of it. With a fatalistic flourish, she slipped it onto her thumb.
The time for subterfuge had passed. Whether she was captured now, trying to escape the monastery, or tomorrow when they reached Rennoc, Lily was lost. At least she would be herself: the Lady Wilfreda, daughter of an English nobleman and a Viking princess, and rightful ruler of her father’s Northumbrian lands.
Her eyes dry, her mind clear, Lily rose to her feet. As she moved toward the door, she hesitated, then removed her jeweled dagger from its sheath, slipping it under her girdle. She did not expect to use it, but the threat might be enough if the situation required it. Carefully, trying not to breathe, Lily cracked open her door.
The abbot’s house was dark and empty. Lily’s hand crept to her dagger anyway. She had expected one of Radulf’s soldiers to appear before her and demand to know where she was going. Icy droplets of fear on her skin made her shiver as she tried to pierce the shadows. There was no one. In some corner of her mind it occurred to her that Radulf had been strangely remiss in not posting his usual guard, but she was so relieved by his oversight that she let her doubts slip away.
Lily’s shaking fingers uncurled from the dagger and she slowly eased out of her room, closing the door behind her.
There were no guards outside the abbot’s house, either, and it was a simple matter to slip into the small courtyard. Breathing fast, heart thudding, Lily pulled the hood of her cloak over her bright hair and ran beneath the archway in the direction of the stables.
Everything was so still.
The monastery buildings were dark, silent shapes, which Lily’s imagination peopled with dozens of watching eyes. The stables were situated near the gatehouse, and the stable door easily creaked open to her touch. The smells of horse and hay were released from within, comforting in their familiarity.
Lily peeped inside.
A torch flared on one wall, which struck her as providential rather than strange. There was no sign of Radulf’s men or any of the monks. A ladder ran up into a hayloft, and after holding her breath and listening, Lily decided that, too, was empty.
Her mare gave a soft whicker of greeting, and several of the other animals moved restlessly. Radulf’s great destrier eyed her solemnly, as if questioning her right to be there. Like its master, the war horse filled Lily with a sense of awe…and regret.
No time for that now!
She hurried forward, the hem of her cloak brushing softly over the straw-littered floor. Her mare thrust a soft nose over the length of wood that served as a gate. “Hush, my beauty,” Lily whispered. “Hush now. I’ll have you out of there in a moment. And then we must fly, silent and swift as night owls.”
Her fingers closed on the wooden ba
r, clumsy in her haste. It fell with a dull thud to the earth floor.
“Lily?”
The word was a whisper, but it may as well have been a thunderbolt. Lily jerked around, searching blindly for the dagger tucked into her girdle.
“Lily!”
Lily wrenched the dagger free, color draining from her face, her breath catching harshly in her throat. The torch threw monstrous shadows, turning the slender man into a giant.
“Stay back!” she ordered harshly. The horses, sensing her fear, began to shift nervously in their stalls.
The man ignored her command. As he strode forward, his long hair and mustache caught the torchlight with a glow like gold. The smile on his handsome face was achingly familiar.
Lily’s dagger fell from her nerveless fingers. She started toward him. “Hew? Hew! How can you be here?”
He caught her, his breath warm in her hair. His arms held her tight with a wiry strength. “Hush, Lily! ’Tis not safe. We must go quickly, before the Norman bastards wake.”
Lily shuddered. “Yes, of course, but—” Suddenly she pulled away. In her excitement she had forgotten so many things, and thought only of her sunny childhood when Hew had been a boy and she a girl. Now she remembered again the man he had become: ambitious, ruthless, and untrustworthy.
“Why are you here, Hew? I thought you long gone across the border into Scotland.”
He reached out to stroke her cheek, his handsome face softening. He was so familiar it was almost as if her father had returned to life. Once he had been almost as close to her as a brother, and Lily struggled against her instinctive need to believe in him.
“I have been in Malcolm’s lands, Lily, but now I’ve returned to raise an army in your name. And to do that, I need you.”
The warm sense of intimacy fell from her at last. Lily stared back at him, too numb to reply.
Hew smiled the devastating smile he had always used to such good effect. Now it left Lily cold.
“King Malcolm is willing to send us men, but must be cautious since he swore fealty to William the Bastard. Once he sends us his men, Lily, I can gather more. They’ll flock to us—but first you have to come to Scotland and promise Malcolm you’ll lead our army. That was Malcolm’s condition—and even if it were not his, I would have made it mine.”
Lily could speak now, and she did so forcibly.
“You’re lying, Hew. You would never agree to me giving you orders.”
He grinned, not the least bit ashamed of his deceit. “You’re probably right. I need you to look beautiful and tragic—Lady Wilfreda, her husband murdered, her proper place usurped by the invading Normans! You can look tragic, can’t you, Lily? You can smile and promise Malcolm whatever he asks? I’ll do the rest.”
No. The rejection was instant. No, I will never allow my people to be drawn into another war.
But Hew, she had learned from experience, was not very receptive to no. She could refuse him now, and be dragged out of here and forced into compliance. Or she could agree, escape with Hew, and then make her own plans once she reached Scotland. King Malcolm might listen; he was a clever man. So clever, she wondered he had allowed himself to be persuaded to back Hew in yet another rebellion.
Of course, Hew could be very persuasive.
“Yes, Hew, I will come with you,” she said, with as much assurance as she could master. In case he should see the lie in her eyes, she turned and walked back toward her mare. Her dagger lay on the ground where she had dropped it, and she bent to collect it, slipping it back into her girdle. Hew followed her, soft-footed and alert. When he touched her shoulder, his fingers caressing, Lily tried not to stiffen. It was probable Hew wanted more than a platonic partnership. Could she pretend an attraction for him she no longer felt?
Maybe she could have done it once…before she knew Radulf.
Lily shuddered, and disguised it by drawing her cloak more tightly about her body as if she were cold. Once she had thought she loved Hew, that she desired nothing more than to be his wife and lie in his arms. Now she knew how shallow and foolish her youthful feelings had been. She had never loved Hew. Her time with Radulf had given her a taste of what real love must be; a fiery dragon that set your blood ablaze. What she had felt for Hew was pitiable in comparison.
Lily glanced up and found Hew watching her, his blue eyes smiling but strangely cool, as if the good humor were but a façade behind which his devious mind was plotting. She forced herself to smile back, to pretend all was well.
“How did you find me?”
“The priest, Father Luc, sent word to me. He was always fond of you, Lily. We have been following you since Grimswade, hoping for an opportunity to free you, but Radulf kept you too close. How came you to fall into his hands?”
Lily patted the mare’s soft nose to gain time. The truth seemed safe enough. “I was hiding in the church and he found me.”
Behind her, Hew was silent. Lily stroked the mare, pretending to be unaware. All the lessons learned from being Vorgen’s wife were returning. The knowledge stirred a bitterness inside her. Tonight, when she sat at the abbot’s table, she had felt as if she was at last beginning to throw off the restrictions being Vorgen’s wife had placed upon her. At last she had felt able to say what she really felt instead of what Vorgen wanted her to say. Now, because of Hew, she must assume her hateful disguise again. Become once more the cold, Norman wife who measured her words as carefully as the spices she kept locked up in a box.
“What were you doing in Grimswade church, Lily?”
She glanced at him, and this time did not try to hide her surprise. “My father and mother are buried there, Hew. I went to say goodbye.”
He had forgotten. She saw the flash of remembrance in his eyes, though he nodded as if he had known it all along.
“So,” Lily found her saddle, “it was your men who were watching the camp?”
“Aye. They were careless and the Norman bastards killed half of them. The rest of us got away, but they were lives I can ill-spare until Malcolm sends me more.” He cocked an eyebrow. “But I saw enough to know you were not the usual sort of prisoner. Are you consorting with the enemy, Lily? Or are you more devious than I thought?”
Lily lifted her chin, color flooding her face. “Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think, Hew.”
Hew laughed without humor. “Oh, I think I do. I think I know you very well indeed. You would not give that lovely body to a Norman unless you could gain something from it. You are cold and calculating, just as Vorgen said. You bewitched him, and now you’ve bewitched Radulf.”
Lily wondered at his stupidity. Vorgen had known her not at all, and if he had been bewitched it was through no fault of hers. And yet Hew believed him, and did not see the suffering behind Lily’s eyes. Radulf, too, had believed Vorgen. A mixture of frustration and anger filled Lily, but she thrust the volatile emotions down.
Now was not a good time to allow her heart to rule her head.
“I was watching you the morning you left the camp at Grimswade,” Hew went on. “I saw Radulf’s tender demeanor. You have played a fine joke on him, Lily. He will have to explain himself to William the Bastard, explain why he has been riding about the countryside with the very woman he was sent to capture. I think you have made certain his star will very soon be setting!”
Lily managed to shrug as if she didn’t care one way or the other, as if she were really as cold and calculating as he seemed to believe. Hew’s eyes gleamed with respect, and she wondered at a man who would admire a woman who lied and cheated and used others to further her own ambition.
He was far worse than she had ever imagined.
“Will you help me saddle the mare?” she asked coolly, neither her voice nor her manner betraying her sick heart.
Hew smiled and complied. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I would have come to fetch you,” he said, hands busy with straps and buckles. “What’s left of my men are waiting beyond the crest of the hill. I did not trust them,
not after Grimswade. They are fools. Not like us, Lily.”
They led the mare toward the door, Lily whispering soothing words as the animal whickered nervously. Outside, the darkness was as still as ever and the monastery slept on. Hew threw Lily up into the saddle and took the reins, walking the mare toward the gatehouse, a black and bulky silhouette against the cold, starry sky.
“I persuaded one of the lay brothers to open the gate for me,” he murmured, unable to help boasting of his own cleverness. “I told him I was your husband and Radulf had stolen you from me. He believed me. He would have believed far worse of a man with Radulf’s reputation.”
“And you always were a good liar.”
Hew laughed softly, taking her words as a compliment. “Well, maybe it isn’t really a lie. I mean to marry you, Lily. Together we would be an unbeatable force. Better than you and Vorgen—he knew nothing of our people.”
“I remember my father telling you that, just before you betrayed him.”
Hew looked up at her, his face silvered by the starlight. She could tell he did not like what she had said; he did not like to be reminded of his perfidy. It had been foolish to let him know she remembered.
Quite suddenly, Lily was afraid of him.
She had never thought to be afraid before. He had always been Hew, whom she had once loved and now hated, but still Hew, whom she had known all her life. Now, in a flash, she saw that Hew was also a dangerous man, and no friend to her. At present he needed her because of Malcolm’s decree that she head their army, but once Hew had his men…
The gatehouse rose directly before them. Hew led his own mount from where it had been hidden in the shadows by the wall, and climbed quickly into the saddle. He retained his hold on Lily’s reins, sending her an enigmatic look. He did not trust her, either.
Maybe, she thought bitterly, when you had betrayed as many people as Hew had, it was difficult to trust anybody.