Wounded Heroes Boxed Set

by Judith Arnold

  "He was brought up here from infancy, he said. That’s unusual, isn’t it?"

  "Aye, but given the circumstances..." The prior spread his hands. "His father was in quite the quandary. He contributed generously to the priory in return for the boy’s upbringing, of course, but that wasn’t why I agreed to it. I hated to think what might have become of the infant if we didn’t take him in. Babes born under those circumstances ofttimes simply—" Brother Simon’s expression became grave "—disappear."

  "What circumstances? Was he..."

  "You don’t know? I assumed..." The prior shook his head disgustedly. "Forgive me. The older I get, the less circumspect I become. I tell my boys that the best part of wisdom is discretion, but ‘tis a lesson I’d do well to relearn."

  She captured the old prior’s gaze and held it. "I’d like to know, Brother Prior."

  "Then you’d best ask Graeham," he said.

  ***

  SHOULD I? Joanna wondered as she walked home in the gathering twilight. And if she did, would he confide in her?

  Their relations had been strained following Saturday’s row, but had gradually warmed over the past six days. She’d tried to cultivate her anger toward him, to nourish it into an ongoing undercurrent of vexation, but like her brother, she found it difficult to hold a grudge.

  She couldn’t even manage any real wrath over his sending Alice to follow her this morning. What could she expect, after having lied to him about her morning excur-sions? And wasn’t she lying to him still, about Prewitt? How could she hate him when she’d been so baldly dishonest to him?

  She wished she could hate him. It would be better by far to detest Graeham Fox than to think of him...the way she often found herself thinking of him. He was a distraction she couldn’t afford, especially while she was trying to come to a decision about Robert. St. John’s Eve was a mere five days away.

  As Joanna made her way to Wood Street, a steady rain began to fall. She was glad she’d worn her mantle, but sorry she hadn’t thought to substitute wooden pattens for her leather slippers, which were soaked through by the time she got home. She entered her house through the back door, having left the latch string out, and kicked the sodden slippers off in the hallway. She’d assumed Graeham was in the storeroom, but when she crossed the lamplit salle to hang up her wet mantle, she saw him in the shop, leaning on his crutch over her embroidery frame.

  He seemed to be studying something in his hand, although she couldn’t see anything there. The rushes crackled beneath her bare feet as she approached him; still, he didn’t seem aware of her until she entered the shop, and then he spun around. "Mistress."

  "Serjant." She looked at his hand; he had her leather thimble on his little finger.

  Following her gaze, he sheepishly pulled the thimble off and returned it to the basket. "Did you get to speak to Brother Simon?"

  "Aye. He was most cooperative. He’ll send word if Alice shows up in the stables."

  Graeham nodded distractedly as he reached for a cup of wine he’d set on Joanna’s work table. He brought the cup to his mouth and drained it, his movements slow and deliberate, his gaze slightly unfocused.

  "How much have you had to drink?" she asked.

  "Not nearly enough." He hobbled past her, through the salle, and into the darkened storeroom to refill the cup from a ewer on the chest next to his cot.

  Joanna hadn’t seen him drink to excess since that first night, when he was trying to deaden himself to the inevitable pain of having his leg set. She followed him as far as the storeroom doorway. Cautiously she asked, "What’s troubling you, serjant?"

  Graeham tossed down his wine. "Aside from the fact that there’s a little girl all alone on the streets of London tonight and not a bloody thing I can do about it?"

  "I spoke to the ward patrol. I went to Holy—"

  "It’s raining, for Christ’s sake!" Graeham sat on the cot and tried to lean his crutch against the wall near the head of the bed, but it clattered to the floor. He growled an oath.

  Joanna crossed the little chamber and crouched to pick up the crutch as Graeham leaned over to do the same thing. They collided, awkwardly but gently. His arm brushed her breast; his hair swept her face.

  Unbalanced by drink, he closed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut. "Dizzy," he muttered.

  "I’m not surprised," Joanna said, trying to keep her voice steady as her heart rioted from his touch, his nearness, his scent. Fool. She lifted the crutch and rested it against the wall. "You should lie down."

  "I should drink some more wine."

  "Why don’t you lie down for a bit first?"

  Grumbling, he let her help him to stretch out on the cot. The muscles of his arms and shoulders shifted like moving stone beneath the soft linen of his shirt. He was looking at her with that lazy intensity that left her breathless.

  "There, now," she said brusquely as she straightened up. "Just rest a bit, why don’t you? I’ll put this away."

  She lifted the ewer and turned toward the door, halting abruptly when he reached out and seized the embroidered sash tied around her hips; the keys on her chatelaine jangled. "Don’t go," he said.

  She just stared at him, her chest rising and falling too quickly, her heart pounding.

  "Sit with me," he said softly, his voice only slightly slurred from drink. "Put that down and sit with me. I won’t drink any more. I just want..." He closed his eyes. His hand fisted tightly around the sash, his knuckles pressing into her hip. "Please just sit with me."

  He tugged downward on the sash. Joanna set the ewer on the chest and sat on the edge of the cot, turning to face him. He didn’t release the sash, as if he thought she might flee if he did. It unnerved her to be tethered next to him on his bed in the dark this way.

  Outside, the rain intensified, battering the latched shutters of the rear window in an incessant barrage. Graeham eyed the trembling shutters, his brows drawn together. She knew what he was thinking.

  "She’ll find shelter from the rain," Joanna said.

  He looked at her.

  "Alice knows the streets, serjant. She knows where to sleep in bad weather." Joanna forced a smile. "Mayhap she’ll decide this is a good night to spend in the stable at Holy Trinity—in which case, we’ll see her again soon enough."

  "If the brothers don’t muck things up," Graeham said. "And if they can hold on to her once they find her."

  "I’m sure they’ll handle it just fine."

  "I’m not. Damn this leg of mine. If I weren’t a helpless cripple, I could go out looking for her myself. Hell, I would have caught her as she was running away. I hate having to depend on other people for things I ought to be doing myself."

  "Brother Simon said that about you."

  "What did he say?"

  "That you were never one to rely on others, for anything. He said if you needed something done, you did it yourself, and if you were bored, you found ways to amuse yourself." She smiled. "He knew about the door in the wall and the nighttime trips to the horsepool."

  Graeham regarded her incredulously. "He didn’t."

  "He did."

  "By the Rood," he chuckled. "I should have known."

  "I’m glad to see your spirits improve," Joanna said shyly.

  He smiled at her in that drowsy-eyed way of his. "‘Tis your doing. Just having you here, so close, makes me feel..." His expression sobered. Still gripping her sash, he draped his free arm over his eyes and sighed. "I’m drunk."

  "Perhaps you should try to sleep."

  "Nay. You must tell me what else he said."

  "Brother Simon?"

  "Aye. He told you about the horsepool." Graeham uncovered his eyes and looked at her. "What else did he tell you about me?"

  Joanna averted her gaze. "He said you were a clever boy, very bright, and that at one time you’d wanted to be a cleric, but then you chose a different path."

  "It chose me. What else?"

  "That you tended to keep to yourself."

&n
bsp; "Ah. Did he tell you why?"

  Joanna hesitated. "He said the other boys didn’t quite know what to make of you, because you’d been brought up there from the time you were an infant."

  Graeham’s gaze searched hers, his eyes luminous in the dimly lit room. "Did he tell you why I was brought up there?"

  "Not in so many words. He...hinted about the circumstances of your birth. I gathered you were..." How did one say it politely?

  "A bastard. A rich man’s bastard, evidently."

  "Yes, Brother Simon said your father made a generous contribution to the priory as compensation for your upbringing."

  "Twelve marks a year, plus the cost of a wet nurse for the first two years."

  "Twelve marks!" Graeham Fox’s father must have been very wealthy indeed. "Who...Nay, ‘tis none of my affair."

  "Who is my father?" Manfrid jumped onto the cot and settled down between Graeham and the wall, nosing Graeham’s free hand. The serjant gently scratched his head; Manfrid closed his eyes and purred ecstatically. "I’ve no idea."

  "Brother Simon never told you?"

  "Nay, he was sworn to secrecy, but there was a time—before I stopped caring—that I used to plead with him to tell me. All he would reveal was that I was sired by an important man on a gently bred woman to whom he wasn’t wed. I take it I was something of a potential embarrassment to everyone involved. I suppose I should be grateful I was sent to Holy Trinity. ‘Twould have been easier and cheaper to simply leave me out in the woods."

  Joanna rubbed her arms.

  Graeham’s hand slid along the sash, the backs of his fingers stroking her hip through her kirtle. "You’re shivering. I can feel it."

  "It saddens me to think of an unwanted baby."

  His eyes grew hard. "It more than saddens me. I’ll never..." He looked away self-consciously.

  "Yes?"

  He sighed. "I promised myself long ago that I’d never sire a bastard. Every child deserves parents who want him, and a home to call his own."

  How, Joanna wondered, did a man lie with women and avoid siring bastards? The answer came to her in a remnant of overheard conversation... I was going to have her in the Frankish manner... And there were other ways a woman could satisfy a man without fear of pregnancy— as Joanna knew well from the things Prewitt used to make her do. No doubt the handsome, blue-eyed serjant was well acquainted with all the more sinful variations of lovemaking.

  A devilish impulse made Joanna say, "Had you become a monk, as Brother Simon wished, ‘twould have solved the problem of siring bastards."

  Graeham gave her wry look. "‘Twasn’t a solution that held much appeal for me. By the time I was fourteen, I knew I could never spend the rest of my life in a monastery. I decided I’d take minor orders. Clerics live with certain restrictions, but at least they get to live in the world."

  "And those restrictions are often ignored," Joanna said, thinking of the many clerics in lower orders who enjoyed the privileges of laymen, including wives. Even deacons and priests often kept mistresses. "What happened when you were fourteen?"

  Graeham loosened his grip on the sash, absently rubbing his thumb over the embroidered surface, the movement of his hand a gentle and mesmerizing caress against her. "My father instructed Brother Simon to send me to Beauvais so that I might serve his old friend, Lord Gui, as a lay clerk. I was outraged. I’d expected to be tonsured that summer and go to Oxford to study theology and dialectic, but my sire insisted that I spend two years serving his lordship first. Without his money, I couldn’t afford to pay my teachers, so I had no choice but to concede to his wishes. I arrived in Beauvais filled with resentment and determined to be the worst clerk I could be, so that he’d send me packing and I could go to Oxford."

  "Yet you stayed for...how many years?"

  "Eleven."

  "And not as a clerk. Were you truly that bad at it?"

  "Not on purpose." Graeham smiled; his fingers glided back and forth along the sash, over her hipbone, grazing her belly, raising goose bumps wherever they touched. "Lord Gui took a liking to me, and I to him. I didn’t have it in my heart to serve him poorly, so I tried to do my best. I wrote his correspondence and delivered his messages—but whenever he could spare me, I’d be at the sporting field, watching the men-at-arms go through their training exercises."

  "Ah."

  "I can imagine how I looked to them—this unworldly boy in a black habit gazing in awe as men swung their swords and axes and charged each other on warhorses. One afternoon Lord Gui brought me over to his master at arms and ordered him to instruct me in small weaponry and the art of defending myself with my fists and feet. I was thrilled, and my enthusiasm made me a diligent student. Within a year, I was wielding swords and hurling lances from horseback—and Lord Gui had found another clerk to take my place."

  "What happened when your two years were up?" Joanna asked.

  "His lordship offered me a position with his corps of soldiers, and I accepted unreservedly."

  "Did you ever ask Lord Gui who your father was?"

  Graeham’s expression sobered. "Once. He told me my father had made him vow on a holy relic not to reveal his identity. He said it vexed him to have to keep this secret, but he had no choice. I never asked him again. I told myself I didn’t care. If he didn’t want me..." Graeham turned his face toward the wall, his jaw set.

  Joanna touched his hand. "I’m sorry."

  He withdrew his fingers from beneath her sash and closed his hand over hers. Joanna’s heart raced as he brought her hand to his face. Her knuckles brushed his mouth, and for a breathless moment she thought he might kiss her hand, but he didn’t. Closing his eyes, he murmured, "I love the way you smell."

  He opened her fingers and laid the flat of her hand against his warm face; she hitched in a breath at the strangely erotic sensation of needle-sharp stubble against her tender palm. All she could hear was the drumming of the rain and her own erratic breathing.

  He pressed her hand to his cheek, rubbed against it. "God, I wish..."

  "Yes?" she whispered unsteadily, her heart like a fist in her chest.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her, the heat in his gaze giving way to something that looked like resignation. "I wish I hadn’t gotten so bloody drunk," he said, releasing her hand.

  Joanna stood, smoothing her skirts awkwardly as she strove for composure. "You should sleep it off, serjant. I daresay you’ll feel better in the morning."

  "I daresay," he muttered.

  "Well." Joanna crossed to the doorway and began drawing the leather curtain across. "Sleep well."

  "Mistress." He raised himself on an elbow.

  "Yes?"

  He seemed to be having trouble finding his words. Presently he sighed and lay back down. "Good night, mistress."

  "Good night, serjant."

  Chapter 19

  * * *

  NEWGATE STREET WAS so crowded with St. John’s Eve revelers that it took Joanna and Hugh twice as long as it should have to make their way from Wood Street to the cross in front of St. Michael la Querne. The small church, tucked into a fork in the road at the apex of Ludgate Hill, was dwarfed by St. Paul’s Cathedral, rising in dignified splendor right next to it.

  Shading her eyes against the midday sun, Joanna scanned the hordes of people milling about, looking for Robert and his daughters. It was as mixed an assembly as that at the Friday fair, most of them dressed in their holiday finest. Not wanting to wear the honey-brown silk again, Joanna had opted for her least patched kirtle—the blue one—but embellished it with her best girdle and purse. Over her braids she wore a crisp linen veil secured with an embroidered ribbon.

  "There they are." Hugh pointed to an audience that had gathered around two jongleurs acting out a little comédie involving a priest selling an indulgence to a portly and pompous "Sir Alfred." Standing at the edge of the crowd were Robert, his daughters...and Margaret. Sir Alfred, cleverly maneuvered into sacrificing his riches in order to avoid the pains of hell, began
extracting bags of silver from beneath his overtunic, thus shrinking his considerable belly. Robert and his cousin laughed along with everyone else. They caught each other’s eye, as if to share the jest. Catherine was sucking on her two favorite fingers; Beatrix was squirming.

  Hugh cupped his hands around his mouth. "Robert!"

  Robert turned, smiling when he saw them. Margaret turned, too. Her smile faltered when her gaze lit on Joanna.

  She knows, Joanna thought. She knows he asked me to marry him. How would Joanna feel in such a situation? How would she act?

  Margaret caught Joanna’s eye and smiled—just a small smile, and perhaps a bit strained, but Joanna had to admire her for it. She was going to get through this with her head held high; she would survive this, with grace. Some people have the gift of persevering in the face of adversity.

  Could Joanna display such strength of character if the situation were reversed—if the man she loved were preparing to wed another woman? She immediately pictured Graeham Fox kneeling at the altar next to some faceless woman, and felt a sickening ache in her belly—in her very soul.

  And she wasn’t even in love with Graeham Fox, merely...infatuated with him. Fascinated by him. Obsessed with him.

  But not in love.

  ***

  "PAPA, LOOK! LOOK!" cried little Catherine, pointing to an acrobat executing feats of contortion on a long pole held aloft by two colleagues, all of them in parti-colored tunics and fanciful hats. A crowd had formed around the troupe, performing in front of the tanners’ market hall on the corner of Newgate and St. Lawrence. The child hopped and bobbed excitedly as she angled for a better view.

  "Here you go." Robert lifted his daughter onto his shoulders, holding on to her stockinged legs. "Is that better?"

  "Aye!" She clapped her hands, screeching with delight. "Beatrix, look!"

  But Catherine’s little sister was taking her midafternoon nap on Margaret’s shoulder, arms and legs hanging limply, little pink mouth half open, oblivious to the chaos surrounding her. Newgate Street had been a riot of noise and roiling crowds since before nones; judging from past midsummer celebrations, the merrymaking would continue through the night, curfew being lifted for the Feast of St. John the Baptist.