by Stuart, Anne
He rolled over on his back, and she curled closer, letting her head rest on his shoulder. There were times he doubted if he knew what contentment was, or ever had. Years and years ago, when he’d been a child living in the north, on his parents’ estates, he’d been hopeful, foolishly believing in a forgiving God and an honorable mankind.
He’d learned the folly of both, and that contentment was a sham, a lie to trick weaklings.
But even now, lying amidst the furs with Alys of Summersedge sleeping by his side, so trusting, so small and sweet and delicious, he could feel the first dangerous trickle of peace. The kind of peace that would strip away everything he’d worked for. The kind of peace that would allow him to make the mistake of caring for Alys of Summersedge, only to have her die in childbirth and her child die with her.
The kind of peace that would slaughter innocent children and turn him into a weak, useless coward.
He wanted no peace like that He would remain as he was, invulnerable, clever, wicked as he could be.
And he would survive.
Chapter Fifteen
Richard the Fair had a knack for choosing his weapons. His knights were among the bravest and the strongest in all of England, his servants were devious and skilled, and his chief advisor, Simon of Navarre, was feared throughout the land.
Simon had no doubt that whoever was foolhardy enough to sneak into his tower room in the middle of the night would be well-armed, and sent by Richard in search of the deadly herbal concoction. Richard was an impatient man, and Simon had put him off for too long.
He lay perfectly still on the wide bed, Alys asleep beside him with the thick fur throw chastely between them. It was just as well he hadn’t given in to temptation and deflowered her. Lovemaking, when done properly, took too much away from the participants. He needed to be in full control of his senses to defeat the intruder.
The man would be entirely ready to kill him once he found the potion. It would simplify Richard’s life enormously—there would be no witness, no accomplice to pay off, and he could hand his older sister to a wealthier prospect Therefore, whoever was in his rooms must be possessed of intelligence and judgment as well as ruthlessness. Richard wouldn’t entrust such a decision to just anyone.
It wouldn’t be Thomas du Rhaymer. Thomas wasn’t willing to do Richard’s dirty work, and Richard knew it. He saved Sir Thomas and his formidable fighting skills for straightforward battle. He used others to commit murders.
The man moved with great stealth—that narrowed the field down to Aidan of Montrose, a squire to Sir Horace and a young man totally without conscience. Simon slid from the bed in utter silence, leaving Alys sleeping still.
Aidan didn’t hear him coming. Simon moved up behind him like a wraith, absently aware that he was unarmed and Aidan had a long dagger that had cut more than its share of throats. He had little doubt he would prevail, and little concern if he didn’t. And then he remembered the woman lying asleep in his bed.
Something alerted Aidan, for he spun around, dagger already drawn and flashing outward, and Simon acted instinctively. His right arm shot out, his hand closing tightly around Aidan’s thin neck as he slammed him against the stone wall by the window. With his left hand he caught Aidan’s knife-wielding wrist, twisting it until he heard the bones snap, until the dagger clattered onto the floor and Aidan gasped in pain and fury.
“Were you searching for something, Master Aidan?” Simon said softly, tightening the iron hold he had on Aidan’s slender neck. It would be a simple enough matter to crush the life out of him, leaving him to strangle on his own blood, and it would be no more than what he deserved. Simon had seen the corpses of the men and women whose throats Aidan had cut. Doubtless on Richard’s orders, but he was a young man who took pleasure in his work.
Simon was not. He had killed enough people to last him through this lifetime and the next, and he didn’t want even a pimple on the ass of humanity like Aidan of Montrose on what was left of his conscience.
“I mistook your room…” Aidan gasped, but Simon shook his head with a chilly smile.
“Don’t bother, Master Aidan. I know why you came, and I know who sent you here. You’ll have to report back to your master that you failed, and that I am greatly displeased with him.”
There was pure malice in Aidan’s eyes. “I don’t like failure,” he said, “and there’s nothing wrong with your right hand at all, is there? Lord Richard would be interested to know that, don’t you think?” With a superhuman effort he jerked his arms up, trying to break Simon’s hold, but he’d underestimated his opponent. The force of the ensuing blow sent him reeling back, toward the window that overlooked the courtyard.
Simon had released him abruptly. Aidan of Montrose made no sound at all as he went through the open window, and there was no terror in his face as he disappeared into the deep well of the night. Only acceptance.
Simon heard the distant thud as the body smashed against hard stone below. No one would be likely to find him until morning, and it would be impossible to tell where he’d fallen from. Richard would know, of course. And Richard would be warned.
He closed the wooden shutters, not bothering to look down into the darkened courtyard below. The wind was still strong, the room was chilly, and he felt that strange, empty feeling that came over him when he least expected it. If any man had deserved to die it was the murderous Aidan of Montrose. If his fear of Simon had made him clumsy, that was his own fault He wouldn’t be able to carry tales of the miraculous cure of Simon’s twisted right hand; he wouldn’t be around to try again.
If Simon had any sense at all, he would be rejoicing.
“Is he dead?”
Alys stood there, sleepy, her long plaits hanging down to her waist, her plain dress rumpled and disordered. He wondered how long she’d been watching.
“Undoubtedly.”
“Shouldn’t you check?”
“If he’s not dead now he will be before long. If I go down and find he still breathes, I’ll have to cut his throat, and I have no desire to get blood on my robes.” He kept his voice cool and unfeeling, hoping to shock her.
Alys of Summersedge didn’t shock easily. “You already have blood on your robes, my lord,” she murmured. “He must have hurt you.”
He glanced down at himself in surprise. Even in the dim light of the banked fire he could see the dark stain of blood against his side. He hadn’t even realized that Aidan had managed to cut him.
“I’ll have someone see you to your room…” he began, but she moved toward him.
“I’ll take care of you,” she said.
“I’m entirely capable of tending my own wounds.” He sounded disgruntled, but he didn’t care. He wanted her out of there, now. He wanted to patch his torn skin, to bathe the blood and the sin from his hands and body. He was hurting, and he wasn’t about to share his pain with anyone.
“Take off your robe, my lord.” Her voice was completely calm as she moved toward the basin and ewer, pouring fresh water into the bowl. There were clean cloths near at hand. But he wanted her gone from this place.
“I told you, I can take care of it. Even with one useful hand I can see to it, and if I need assistance I’ll have Godfrey attend me.”
She came up to him, setting the basin on the table. “You have two useful hands, my lord. I know it as well as that poor man did. Are you going to throw me out the window as well?”
“Don’t tempt me,” he muttered.
“I have done my share of nursing, my lord,” she said. “I’m comfortable with the human body. Take off your robe and lie on the bed and I’ll see to your wound.”
He gave her a cool stare. “The good sisters allowed you to tend men in the convent infirmary? And what were those men doing there?”
“There were no men, my lord. But a body is a body - I don’t see why such a fuss has to be made about it.”
She was trying to sound so practical. He found that even through the bleak mood that had settled over h
im he could be amused by her stalwart determination to tend his wounds, by her insistence that one body was much the same as any other.
If he were sensible he would ignore her, send her back to the tower room she shared with her sister, and take care of his own body. He was more than capable of stitching his torn flesh without flinching. He wondered if she was.
But he wasn’t feeling sensible. He was hot, angry, reckless. A man lay dead beneath his window, his side was bleeding, and a woman he wanted stood before him.
“As you wish,” he said abruptly, moving to the heavy iron candelabrum he used to light his work. He’d dowsed the flames earlier, but now he simply stuck the end of it in the glowing coals until the tapers ignited, throwing a bright, warm light throughout the room. “You’ll need to see what you’re doing.” He took only a small step back from her and stripped the heavy, embroidered robe over his head.
Beneath it he wore breeches and a loose white linen shirt that was already stained dark red with blood. He stripped that off as well, standing before her clad only in breeches, and waited for her reaction.
At first her attention was only for the gash in his side. He could tell that it was nothing of note—a mere slice that wouldn’t need stitching, for all the blood. “Sit down, for heaven’s sake,” she said, and when he did as she bid she knelt down in front of him without hesitation, pressing a cool wet cloth to the wound, turning it, soaking up the blood that had already begun to thicken and slow.
He looked down at her bowed head, momentarily bemused as she tended to him. It had been many years since he’d allowed anyone else to tend his body. Since he’d left the Saracens his own knowledge of healing had surpassed everyone else’s, and he was safer seeing to his own care.
But her touch was gentle, soothing, and he leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes, letting her touch him, simply breathing in the pleasure of it Her arms were resting on his thighs as she pressed the damp cloth against his side, and it was exquisite torment He wanted to pull her closer, so that her arms encircled his hips, her head resting against him. He wanted her to use her mouth on him, as he’d learned in France, he wanted that and more…
His eyes shot open, his erotic fantasies fading, when he realized she wasn’t moving. She knelt between his legs, looking up at him, wonder and curiosity in her eyes as she surveyed his scarred torso. Wonder, curiosity, but no disgust.
“What happened to you?” she said in a soft voice, and she let her small, soft hand reach up to touch the ancient mark of a sword cut across his left shoulder. Her fingertips traced the thick white line, coming to a knife wound that had grown infected before it had healed. “Who did this?” Her voice was filled with pain and anger, as if she could rage at an ancient enemy long dead.
“Saracens,” he said. “Knights. Gypsies. Robbers. I’ve traveled to many distant places in my life, and this world is a dangerous place.” He kept his voice even as her fingers brushed against the place where Raddulf the Red had speared him.
“Saracens and knights?” she murmured, seemingly intent on exploring his lean, scarred body. She looked up at him. “Were you on crusade?”
Of course he should deny it What would Simon of Navarre, the evil wizard of Richard the Fair, have been doing on a crusade to free the Holy Land?
Exactly what he had done. Slaughtering innocents in a quest based on greed. Not his own, but other men’s, making his guilt all the worse. Until he made a vow that he would kill for no man’s greed, no man’s dreams, but his own. And he’d kept that vow in the years since.
“Don’t answer,” she said, when he hesitated. “You’ll only lie to me. Your body speaks more truthfully than your words.”
Little did she know. If she moved closer between his legs she would discover exactly how truthful his body was, though in her convent-bred innocence she might not realize just how hard he was for her. The touch of her hands against his ancient wounds, the soft mercy of her voice, the scent of her, the feel of her pressing against his legs, combined to arouse him in ways he hadn’t thought possible.
Her delicate fingers led her to the worst of his wounds, where a battle axe had cloven deep into his side. A battle axe belonging to a fellow crusader, madly determined to protect his plunder from one who had no interest in it.
He’d left Simon for dead beneath the hot Constantinople sun. It was there El Adhir’s men had found him, and brought him to be healed. And begun to teach him the wisdom of the East.
Her hands traced the horrific wound almost reverently. “You must have been very close to death,” she said in barely a whisper.
“Yes.” His own voice was strained, but she didn’t seem to notice. Instead she bent her head and placed her lips against the wound that had brought him new life.
He caught her face, gently, in his hands and drew her away, unable to bear it. She simply turned her head and kissed the scarred right hand that had killed a man that night.
He would die at her hands. He knew it, with sudden lightning clarity. The man he had struggled so hard to become, the all-powerful, all-knowing Simon of Navarre, would be destroyed by a woman’s heart. If he had any sense at all he’d toss her out the window after Aidan of Montrose. He could find someone else to follow in his quest for wealth and power. Another country, another lord without Richard’s weaknesses for flesh and wine.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t killed women before. He’d followed orders and set fire to the building in Constantinople that had housed helpless women and children. It mattered not that he hadn’t known who or what was inside until he heard the helpless screams of the dying.
He could kill this tender young girl who was so very great a threat to him. It would be so simple to snap her neck.
She looked up at him then, with wise eyes. “What are you thinking, my lord?” she asked simply.
“That you’ll be the death of me. And that I should kill you before you destroy me.”
She didn’t blink. Reinforcing what a formidable opponent she was, to accept his honesty without flinching. Another woman would have run screaming from the room. Another woman wouldn’t have been there in the first place. Alys of Summersedge didn’t even draw back.
“It would probably be the wisest course,” she said with great calm. “But you won’t do it.”
“Why not?”
She smiled then. A very small, utterly bewitching smile, one that put to a lie the notion that Alys was the plain sister. He stared at her, momentarily, dangerously lost “Because, my lord, you are not nearly as heartless as you devoutly wish to be. Despite your best efforts to prove otherwise, you are an honorable, caring man. You would no more murder a helpless woman than you would fly.”
He stared down at her, and in the distance he could still hear the screams of the dying, the crackle of the fire as it consumed the old building thousand of miles, thousands of years away. “I thought your sister was the witless one,” he said harshly. “If you have neither brains nor beauty, what’s to recommend you?”
He watched the color drain from her face. There was more than one way to kill a woman, he thought distantly. You could lure her into thinking you saw her true worth, and then mock her.
Alys of Summersedge sat back on her heels, no longer touching him, staring up at him in shock and dismay.
He wanted to reach out and draw her back to him, to pull her arms around his bare, scarred waist and kiss the pain from her eyes. But he did nothing. Knowing that that was the crudest thing of all.
Godfrey was too wise and knowledgeable a servant to simply barge in, or even disturb him by knocking. But Simon knew he was there, and he rose from his chair, careful not to touch the young woman who was still kneeling on the floor, her head bowed.
One look at Godfrey’s face told him that Aidan of Montrose had been found. “Take Lady Alys back to her room, Godfrey,” he said in an even voice. “Make certain no one sees you—there’ll be enough gossip as there is.”
Godfrey’s mournful face was too expressive as he nodded. Al
ys was struggling to her feet, but Simon made no move to assist her. Afraid that if he touched her he wouldn’t be able to let her go. After a moment’s hesitation Godfrey went to her side, offering her his strong arm as she struggled with the trailing skirts of her ugly, hateful dress.
He should have torn it off her. He should have slaked his lust in her soft young body; he should have taken her again and again until he was blind and weary of it and her. Taken her as the gypsies did, taken her as the Arabs did. Taken her with dark teeming lust and cruel, tender love.
Instead he’d wounded her, deliberately, and the wounding hurt him most of all.
At least she would leave him alone. She would no longer look at him out of hopeful eyes; she would be wise enough to be wary of a dangerous man such as he. He didn’t move as she came towards him. The wound in his side had stopped oozing blood. The rest of his scarred body was thrown into relief by the crackling fire, casting his face in shadows. He stood over her, and he knew that he terrified her, and he rejoiced in it.
Except that she stopped, despite Godfrey’s best efforts to lead her away. She stopped in front of him, and he expected to see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. They were clear and determined.
“Simon of Navarre,” she said in a calm, stern voice. “You are a very wicked man. But you’re not getting rid of me so easily.” She had the absolute temerity to reach up on her tiptoes and brush a soft kiss against his set, grim mouth. And then she was gone, leaving Godfrey standing there, astonished and amused.
“Get after her!” Simon snarled. “That should have convinced you she hasn’t the sense a baby chick has. See her safely to her room or I’ll…” He couldn’t think of a proper threat, she’d managed to addle him so completely, and Godfrey simply grinned, damn him, before he took off after her.