“Thank you,” she managed, and quickly returned her attention to his brother. She made a show of patting the poultice, which she’d long since forgotten, then dipped her fingers into the bowl and spread the mixture on another strip of linen.
He cleared his throat. “Is there any ale to be had?” She turned toward him, but he looked away from her—pointedly, it seemed—and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Of course. Willa?”
The kitchen wench filled a horn for him, and he sat on a bench to drink it while Faithe applied the second poultice to his brother’s side.
“Why the flowers?” he asked presently.
She looked up. He avoided her gaze, indicating with a sweep of his arm the, garlands and swags with which they’d adorned the great hall that morning.
“It’s May Day.” She covered her patient with a blanket.
“Ah.” He still looked confused.
She smiled. “On the first of May we decorate our homes with flowers. ‘Tis a celebration of spring.” And fertility, but she hesitated to tell him how her villeins would observe the holiday that night. With any luck, he’d be too wrapped up in caring for his brother to venture outside.
“I see.”
Faithe glanced up to gauge his expression. Many of the Normans viewed their ancient customs as ungodly. Would he attempt to ban them now that he was master of Hauekleah?
She saw a muscle tense in his jaw. Lifting his horn, he drained it. He didn’t like to be read, this one, to be examined and interpreted. From all appearances, he was a man very much sealed within himself, like a soldier buckled into his armor. She wondered if he ever took it off.
As she pressed a small poultice to the wound on Sir Alex’s forehead, he began to stir, muttering things in blurry French. She washed her hands, then tied a bandage around his head to hold the herbal compress in place as de Périgueux came and knelt next to her in the rushes. “Open your eyes, Alex,” he said softly, in his own tongue. “Wake up.” His gentleness struck her as touchingly at odds with his fierce demeanor.
Faithe listened to de Périgueux coax his brother into wakefulness as she repacked her medicine box and tidied up the area.
“That’s it,” Luke said as Alex opened his eyes and squinted at his surroundings. “Welcome back, little brother.”
The young man turned toward the voice and winced. “What in the name of God…”
“We were ambushed in the woods.”
Sir Alex’s large brown eyes narrowed in concentration. His coloring was as dark as his brother’s, and he looked to be nearly as tall, but with a somewhat leaner build. The men bore a strong family resemblance, and were both very striking, but in different ways. Despite the scars, both new and old, young Alex’s clean-shaven face had an open, almost innocent beauty, whereas there was nothing innocent about Luke de Périgueux. He had the savage eyes and firmly set jaw of a flesh-eater. Faithe had the sense that if she pushed him too far, he might leap upon her and sink his teeth in her throat.
“Ambushed,” Alex murmured. “That’s right. Two of them, weren’t there? Saxons?”
“Aye. Ugly bastards they were, and out for blood.”
Alex shrugged. “Can’t blame them. If I were one of them, I’d be trying to kill us, too.”
Faithe thought this a rather singular sentiment, coming as it did from a Norman soldier.
Sir Luke quirked his mouth in a way that conveyed bemused forbearance. “They tell me those two are ordinary bandits, not insurgents hungry for Norman blood. They got away, worse luck. Supposedly a party of men is looking for them now.”
“Supposedly?” Frowning, Alex reached up to gingerly finger the bandage wrapped around his head.
Sir Luke cast a furtive look in Faithe’s direction; his brother seemed unaware of her presence. “I don’t know what to believe from these people. They could be lying just to keep me from going after them myself, so they have time to get away. We can’t trust the English, Alex. They despise us.”
He has no idea I can understand him , Faithe realized. And why should he? The notion of her knowing French was as unlikely as his knowing English. She eavesdropped shamelessly as she gathered her things.
“Of course they despise us,” Alex said. “How could they not?” He groped around for something beneath his blanket. “Where’s my sword?”
“Here.” His brother unbuckled the swordbelt and handed it over.
Alex hugged the sheathed weapon to his chest. “Where are we?”
“Hauekleah Hall.”
“Oh, yes? Have you met your bride?”
“Aye.”
The young man grinned. “Is she pretty?”
Faithe stilled, listening intently.
“She looks like a goose girl,” Sir Luke finally said.
Alex chuckled. “But is she pretty?”
Sir Luke glanced uneasily toward Faithe, who pretended to be absorbed in refolding a pile of linen strips. She noticed Sir Alex follow his brother’s line of vision.
“Is that her?” the young man asked delightedly.
Sir Luke rubbed his forehead. “Aye. Don’t stare.”
Alex did stare, openly. “She is pretty! You lucky dog! Aren’t you going to introduce us?” He tried to sit up, but groaned in pain and sank back down onto the pallet.
“Lie still!” Luke shook his head in vexation, then turned to Faithe and said, in English, “My lady, I’d like you to meet my brother, Alexandre de Périgueux.” To his brother he said merely, “Lady Faithe of Hauekleah.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Sir Alex,” Faithe said in her nearly perfect convent French. Both men looked as if they’d just been smacked in the head with a war hammer. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll go out and tend to the geese.”
Rising, she turned and walked away to the delighted laughter of young Alex. As she passed beyond the front door, she glanced back and saw Luke de Périgueux with his eyes closed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
*
THAT NIGHT, FAITHE awoke to the sound of distant laughter.
Arising from bed, she crossed to a window and swung open the shutters. The light of a full moon washed into her bedchamber, and a mild breeze fluttered her thin night shift. She rubbed her bare arms as she gazed out over the thatched roofs of the village, where revelers still danced around a bonfire in the middle of the green, and beyond it to the vast woodlands and rolling meadows that surrounded her manor.
Somewhere, a woman shrieked. Faithe tensed, but presently the same voice erupted in giggles, and she relaxed. A movement near the sheep fold caught her eye. Squinting, she made out a couple racing hand in hand into the woods. The woman’s white-blond hair whipped behind her like a flag. Faithe recognized her as Willa, one of her kitchen wenches. The man must be Nyle Plowman. Some of the couples who celebrated this night in the forest were longtime sweethearts, like Nyle and Willa. Some were married—usually, but not always, to each other. Others, transported by the festive atmosphere, or the ale, or the simple lure of the flesh, came together for this night only.
A splash made her turn toward the river that cut through her demesne like a horseshoe. Two faraway figures—a man and a woman, naked in the moonlight—emerged from the water and ran into the tall grass on the opposite shore. Faithe thought the woman might be Edyth, the young dairymaid. At first she took the man for Firdolf, the bondman who did odd jobs for her, but then she realized it couldn’t be him. Firdolf had been mooning after one of the twins for some time now—Leola, that was the one—to the exclusion of all other women. If he hadn’t been able to talk Leola into celebrating this night with him, Faithe doubted he would do any celebrating at all. The fellow with Edyth must be one of Firdolf’s many lookalike cousins.
The dairymaid’s companion fell upon her, and soon they were a tangle of arms and legs, writhing together in an age-old rhythm.
Faithe closed the shutter and rested her forehead against the slatted wood, but the image of the couple on the shore refused to fade. It had
been so long since she’d experienced the pleasures of the flesh that she couldn’t remember clearly what it felt like to take a man inside her—to take Caedmon inside her, for her husband had been the only man she’d ever given herself to.
Faithe didn’t think what she’d felt for Caedmon could rightly be called “love.” She’d liked him well enough, though. He’d treated her with respect and been a good husband in many ways, despite his lack of interest in Hauekleah—or perhaps even because of it, for his unwillingness to involve himself in farm life had meant that Faithe could govern Hauekleah as she pleased. When she’d learned of his death, she had grieved, but her dark melancholy had quickly vanished in the light of all her duties as mistress of Hauekleah.
She and Caedmon had shared few interests, and in truth had rarely even conversed—except in bed. Sex had been the highlight of their marriage, and certainly the only pastime they had in common. For close to a year now, Faithe had lived chastely, but not by preference. Many times she had ached for a man’s touch. Since Caedmon’s death, she had oftentimes thought of marrying again—a husband of her own choice this time, a union of the heart.
The breezes carried another voice from the woods: a man calling, “Elga… Elga!” and then crying out in surprise. He must have found her—or she him. Elga Brewer and her husband were the happiest couple Faithe knew. Their mingled laughter made her smile.
A union of the heart…
Her smile faded. There would be no such union for her, it seemed. Instead, there would be Luke de Périgueux. The Black Dragon. A creature with a taste for blood.
Saxon blood. And yet…
Closing her eyes again, she recalled the mesmerizing caress of his knuckles as they’d brushed her neck, again and again, while he braided her hair. The thoughtful gesture had stunned her; it had also ignited a longing in her, a desperate ache born of long months alone in a cold bed.
She could still feel the ticklish warmth of his touch on the back of her neck.
She could also still feel the imprint of his fingers on her wrists. Opening her eyes, she held her hands up and inspected the red-hot marks that would be bruises by this time tomorrow.
Fool . Luke de Périgueux was a monster, the last man in the world she should want in her bed; yet he’d be there soon enough. Shivering, she donned a wrapper over her shift, whispering, “Please, God, let him tire of me quickly. Let him leave here, like Thorgeirr, and never return.” Grimly, she crossed herself.
Thinking to check on Sir Alex, she quietly opened the door of her chamber, situated over the service rooms—the buttery, pantry, and dairy—at the north end of Hauekleah Hall. Looking down into the main hall, dimly lit by a single oil lamp, she saw the figure of a man wrapped in a blanket, standing with his back to her at a window—Alex. His brother, who’d been keeping watch over him, was nowhere to be seen. The servants had all either retired to their own cottages nearby, or were out celebrating tonight; only hirelings slept in the hall, usually at harvest time.
The young man turned toward her as she descended the narrow staircase; he must have had good hearing, for she was silent as the night in her bare feet. “My lady.”
“Sir Alex.”
He made a rueful face. “We’re being a bit formal for brother and sister, don’t you think?”
“Ah. Yes, I suppose so.” Soon he’d be her brother by marriage. Faithe tugged her wrapper more snugly around herself.
“Call me Alex.”
“Then you must call me Faithe.”
“I’m sorry I can’t speak to you in your own language,” he said. “I haven’t my brother’s gift with foreign tongues. I can understand English passably well, but as far as carrying on a conversation in it…”
“That’s perfectly all right.” England was now ruled by those who spoke the Frankish tongue; she’d best get used to it. “You must return to bed,” she said, noting his pale complexion and glassy eyes. “You have no business being on your feet.” That he could stand here like this, chatting casually, in his condition, was a testament both to his youthful fortitude and lack of sense.
Far-off laughter made Alex turn back to the window. “What’s going on out there?”
Faithe looked down and tightened the sash of her wrapper. “‘Tis a holiday. The people are celebrating.”
He scratched his smooth chest thoughtfully. “Those two girls who fed me supper, the twins…” His smile was so lewdly wistful that Faithe couldn’t help but chuckle. He cleared his throat, but the smile remained. “Charming girls.”
“Aye.”
“They wanted me to come into the woods with them tonight, but of course I’m not up to the walk. When I tried to find out why, they both turned the most beguiling shade of pink and refused to answer. It made me wonder.”
The only thing Faithe wondered at was that Lynette and Leola, the most merrily wanton creatures she’d ever known, had the capacity to blush. She shrugged and attempted to change the subject. “Where is your brother?”
“Luke went out to investigate, after we started hearing all the laughter and such. I think he headed for the woods.”
Dear God . Faithe cleared her throat. “Yes, well, then it’s up to me to get you back to bed. Come.” Guiding him by the arm, she led him to his pallet. It was slow going; he grimaced with every halting step. When they got there, she helped him to lie down.
He unwrapped the blanket, murmuring an apology for his state of undress, although it clearly troubled him little, and rearranged it on top of him.
“You really ought not to have gotten up,” Faithe scolded. “Let me check those poultices.” They all needed changing. She lifted the perforated clay fire-cover off the hearth, added a log to the glowing coals, and put a small pot of water on the trivet to warm. Alex watched her quietly as she mixed up a new batch of the herbal compound and spread it on the linen.
“My brother’s lucky to have gotten himself betrothed to you,” he said.
Faithe’s cheeks grew warm. “I suppose it’s handy to have a wife who knows how to fix cuts and scrapes.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he responded with a smile. “You’re very beautiful.”
The warmth became a scalding burn that encompassed her entire face. “This one’s ready,” she said without looking up. “If you’ll just fold back the—”
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” He rose onto an elbow, letting out a little grunt of pain. “That is, I don’t want you to think… well, that I fancy you. Perhaps under other circumstances, but as it is—”
“I understand. Would you just fold back—”
“You’re betrothed to my brother, and I would never—”
“Yes, I understand. Now, please—”
“I was just stating a fact, that’s all. That Luke is a lucky man to have such a beautiful bride.”
“Lie down.” Faithe turned back the blanket herself to expose his hip, keeping the rest of him modestly covered, and peeled off the old poultice. His skin felt hot to the touch; she’d have to do something about that fever. “Your brother doesn’t seem very impressed. He said I look like a goose girl.”
Alex laughed. “I’ve never known a goose girl who wasn’t pretty.” He shrugged. “But then, almost all women are pretty if you just look at them from the right angle.”
“The right angle?” She couldn’t resist a smile as she ran a damp cloth over his wound, which was blessedly free of swelling or redness. “I assume you mean looking down on them as they lie on their backs beneath you.”
A pause, and then he burst out laughing. “By God’s eyes, you’ll be good for Luke. He needs a woman like you to shed some light on that dark soul of his.”
Faithe’s smile subsided. She prepared another poultice as he studied her unself-consciously. “You’re very different, you and your brother,” she said.
Alex gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling for some time while she substituted the second poultice for the one on his side. “Not as different as you might think.”
&nb
sp; “He’s got a darker temperament.” She covered him back up and unwrapped the bandage from around his head. “You said so yourself.”
“Aye…
“And there’s his reputation.” She cleaned his head wound and spread the last of the hyssop and pennyroyal mixture on a small square of linen.
“The Black Dragon,” Alex said, “is what Luke is, not who he is.”
She washed off her hands and wrapped a bandage around his head. “I don’t understand.”
“People see the beast with the crossbow, and they think that’s all there is to Luke de Périgueux. But inside” —he tapped his chest— “in here, he has the heart of a man. A good man.”
“Yes, well…” She tied off the bandage. “Is that too tight?”
Alex struggled up onto his elbow again, although it was clearly painful for him. “He’s saved my life five times.”
“Yes?” She rose to fill a jug with boiling water from the pot.
“The fifth time was this afternoon, when those two men attacked us.” His dark eyes glittered with fever and sincerity.
Faithe added sprigs of lemon balm and wood sorrel to the jug and stoppered it, then set about straightening up the mess she’d made.
“They came out of nowhere,” he said, lying back down with a grunt and folding an arm over his face. “We were riding along, looking for Hauekleah, and suddenly there was a man next to me, swinging that mallet. He got me in the side first, with the spike, and I ended up on my back in the dirt. I went for my sword, and he aimed for my hand, but got my hip instead.”
Faithe sucked in a breath.
“Better my hip than my hand,” he assured her, peeking out from beneath his arm with a smile. “A swordsman’s not worth much without his sword hand.”
“I suppose not,” she muttered.
“I managed to get my sword drawn, but I couldn’t get up to use it, and I knew one swipe of the mallet would send it flying. I reckoned there was a good chance I was going to get my skull bashed in. The other son of a… the other bandit hung back and aimed his sling at Luke, but I gather he wasn’t a very good shot.” Alex squinted, as if to focus his memory. “Luke dismounted and came right up to the fellow with the mallet, which took some nerve, since he was completely unarmed.”
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