Where Love Has Gone

by Speer, Flora

  “Since I have already spent two days and a night in Royce’s chambers, a few more hours cannot damage my reputation any further,” Elaine told her mother. “I will join you in the great hall later.”

  “Ungrateful child!” With that, Lady Irmina exited the room.

  Elaine’s new gown was pale green silk, shot through with silvery threads. The clothes chests Elaine had packed at Warden’s Manor had been delivered to Royce’s chambers. Royce examined every item in Aglise’s chest before sending the lot on to Lady Irmina. Elaine’s chest he gave to her at once, so she had her own undergarments and shoes, and her few pieces of jewelry to wear.

  The maid whom Royce had hired combed her hair into its usual thick braid, but she added silver ribbons to the arrangement, tying off the end of the braid with an ornate twist of ribbon.

  Elaine did not object to the embellishment. Her current dealings with Lady Irmina had led her to understand that her lifelong refusal to make the most of her appearance was a form of rebellion against her mother, and it was almost as childish as Irmina’s behavior.

  But that was in the past. Elaine had changed. She wanted Desmond to find her beautiful. More importantly, she wanted to look her best for her own sake, as evidence of her quiet pride in what she had accomplished by her own determination since Aglise’s disappearance. The reflection she saw in Royce’s shaving mirror bolstered her sense of wellbeing. She left Royce’s chambers for the great hall with a smile on her lips.

  Even Lady Irmina could find nothing about her daughter’s appearance to criticize. Not that she paid much attention to Elaine. Clad in a bright red silk gown and much elaborate jewelry, with her face carefully painted, Lady Irmina was enjoying her heroic status as the woman who had taken a knife thrust meant for the king. Whenever the attention of the courtiers seemed to be wandering from her, she moaned softly and pressed a fluttering hand against her injured side. King Henry indulged her, smiling and kissing her hand, making a great public display of thanking her again.

  “She’ll make the most of her momentary fame,” Elaine said to Royce. “She will never change.”

  “I underestimated her; she’s far more clever than I thought,” Royce said. “She extricated herself from a difficult situation just in time. Have you noticed she no longer speaks of making an important place for herself at the French court? We will probably never know just how much she knew about Lamont’s schemes.”

  “You cannot think she was actively involved?” Elaine cried, dismayed by the possibility.

  “As I said, we will never know for sure. Any more than we can know exactly how much Aglise knew or guessed about the conspiracy, or how culpable she was in her liaison with Bertrand.”

  “My sister would never—”

  “Let it go, Elaine. It’s over. One thing I’ve learned after years of spying and of directing other spies, is that all questions do not have complete answers. Life is full of mysteries. The pleasure of the game lies in trying to answer the questions and solve the mysteries, even while knowing it cannot be done. All that really matters is trying in the right cause.”

  Elaine looked deep into his eyes, noting the lonely shadow lurking there, perhaps as a remnant of treacheries he had uncovered, or men he had sent to their deaths in the name of loyalty to King Henry.

  “I’m not sure whether you are half mad, or very, very wise,” she said. “But I love you, anyway.”

  “You love Desmond,” Royce said, smiling at her. “When he returns, forget maidenly modesty and tell him so.”

  Royce commandeered a small bedchamber for Elaine to use, and she settled into it gratefully, glad to be free of her mother’s oppressive presence. When she inquired about the two squires, Royce told her that both Richard and Ewan had recovered enough to ride to Evreux with their masters. However, Captain Piers remained in port, so she went to visit him aboard the Daisy.

  “I came to thank you for helping us,” she said.

  “‘Twas a pleasure, and I’ve been well paid fer me trouble.” Captain Piers bowed over her hand with a gallant flourish worthy of a great nobleman. “If ever ye need my help again, my lady, I’ll do whatever I can fer ye. Fer a price, o’ course.”

  “Where do you sail next?” she asked, smothering a chuckle over the open way he expressed his desire for as much money as he could extract from his passengers. If only noblemen – and noblewomen – were half so honest.

  “Daisy an’ me are off ta Scotland this very evenin’,” Captain Piers revealed.

  “Carrying spies again?” she teased.

  “Ye know better than ta ask such a question,” the captain said with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Now, why should King Henry send secret agents ta Scotland?”

  “Why, indeed?” Elaine laughed, knowing it was probably exactly what King Henry was doing. Or Royce, in the king’s name. Henry’s late queen had been the sister of Alexander, king of the Scots, and Alexander was married to Sybilla, one of King Henry’s many illegitimate daughters, so the two kings were bound by close family ties and there was, supposedly, peace between England and Scotland. Even so, Elaine was sure Royce could find a treacherous plot being fomented among the Scottish nobles, if he or his spies looked hard enough.

  She bid farewell to Captain Piers and returned to the castle, to another afternoon and evening of feasting and music, and of watching her mother flirt outrageously with the most handsome of King Henry’s nobles.

  Elaine was already bored with courtly life. She longed for Desmond’s presence, at the same time she worried about his true feelings for her.

  During his absence her one genuine pleasure lay in preparing Jean for his trip to Kent, where he was to serve as page to Desmond’s sister-in-law. An elderly nobleman who was bound for London was recruited by Royce to escort Jean to Brixton Manor, and Elaine saw to it that the boy had two new suits of clothing before he left. She bid him farewell with tears in her eyes, after giving him some coins for himself and a letter she had written to the lady of Brixton, in which she extolled Jean’s intelligence and good heart.

  “I’m sure you will be happy in Kent,” she told him.

  “Sir Desmond said so, too,” Jean replied, his eyes shining with excitement. “He promised if I’m a good page, he’ll take me on as his squire after Richard is knighted.”

  Elaine left him with her heart a little lighter.

  Chapter 21

  Desmond came to her shortly before dawn on the sixth day after leaving Caen. Elaine had been awake for some time. Expecting to see her maidservant, she answered the knock on her chamber door in her bare feet and thin linen night robe. Desmond was unshaven. Weariness lined his face and shadowed his eyes. His sword and chainmail tunic were gone. He wore only his padded gambeson and his hose and boots.

  At first Elaine couldn’t speak. She pulled the door open wider and stepped back to let him enter. She shut the door and leaned against it. And waited. Desmond just stared at her in the faintly rosy predawn light. Finally, she could bear the suspense no longer.

  “What happened?” she asked, sounding somewhat breathless.

  “The French have withdrawn. The invasion has ended.”

  “Thank heaven.” She closed her eyes, only to open them at once when she sensed his warmth moving closer. Warmth, and the distinctive odor of horse and road dust and sweaty male surrounded her. And the coppery smell of blood. “Are you wounded?”

  “On our way back to Caen, we met a few of King Louis’s men who were not happy to learn we’d ended their dreams of land to seize and fair maidens to ravish. Cadwallon and I persuaded them to reform their minds to a more peaceable attitude.”

  “Was Cadwallon hurt, too?”

  “Merely a scratch. Ewan is bandaging it. Elaine, I have other news that does not concern the invasion.”

  “Tell me later. Did Richard see to your wound?”

  “He offered, as a good squire should. I refused him. All I wanted from Richard was for him to disarm me. For the rest, for washing and binding my wound, and fo
r soothing the memory of violent battle, I need you.”

  “The water in my pitcher is cold. I’ll send for hot water.” She turned to open the door.

  “No.” Desmond’s hand slammed on the wood, keeping the door closed. “No servants. Cold water will do well enough. I want only you.”

  “Very well, then.” She looked him over, but in the shadowy light she couldn’t detect any sign of his wound. “Lift your arms and I’ll help you remove your gambeson, so I can see where you were cut.”

  He placed his hands on either side of her, holding her with her back once more against the door. She raised her head to protest that she couldn’t tend to his wound unless she could find it, but she never uttered the words. Before she could speak his mouth slanted across hers while his body pressed her tighter against the wood panels of the door, making her aware of his urgent masculine need.

  She tried to pull away from him so she could ask where his wound was, but the instant their lips separated and she opened hers, his tongue surged into her with all the force of a crossbow quarrel finding its target. His tongue, and his hard masculine shaft, pinned her to the door, the trembling victim of her own desire for him.

  She felt herself beginning to melt. Heat pooled in her lower body. Her knees buckled. In an effort to keep herself upright she wound her arms around Desmond’s waist and held on tight. Not until he tore his mouth from hers and she could breathe again did she realize that the warmth and the stickiness she was feeling came not so much from Desmond’s urgent need of her, but from a gash in his left side just below his waist, which was bleeding in a rather nasty way.

  It was a common location for a broadsword wound. A swordsman customarily aimed for the mid torso below his opponent’s ribs. If the slashing blow was wide and deep enough a man’s insides would spill out and he would die in agony. Less obviously fatal wounds merely punctured the gut. In that case, though the wound was small death still came, though more slowly, from putrefaction. Lesser still were wounds that only slashed through muscle and did not open the gut, and those had a chance of healing, so long as they did not putrefy.

  Elaine had seen all three types of wound during her youth at Dereham and her later years at Warden’s Manor. Men-at-arms often hurt each other if they grew careless during practice. Sometimes they fought in earnest, over a woman, or gambling debts, or out of pent-up anger.

  “Desmond, you must remove your gambeson now.” Elaine took her hands from his waist and placed them on his shoulders, pushing him away from her. This time he allowed her to do as she wanted.

  When she finally dragged the sweaty, bloodstained padded shirt off him, she shuddered at the sight of his left side covered in dried blood.

  A quick knock on her door was followed by the entrance of her maidservant carrying the large jug of hot water that Elaine had requested be delivered to her every morning. The maid stopped short at the sight of a half-clothed man in her mistress’s bedchamber.

  “Thank you,” Elaine said, trying to sound as if nothing was the least bit unusual. “Please bring me a pitcher of wine and some food. Do not tell anyone what you’ve seen here.”

  As soon as the maid was gone Elaine said to Desmond, “Take off your hose and boots, too. Don’t argue with me, just do it.”

  To her amazement Desmond grinned as broadly as Cadwallon ever did, and quickly stripped away all of his remaining clothes. Pretending she wasn’t aware of his aroused state, Elaine examined his wound.

  “Will I die of it?” Desmond asked, sounding remarkably solemn.

  “Certainly not. I think you knew it was a minor cut,” she scolded. “The skin is barely nicked.”

  “It bled so much that I couldn’t be certain,” he said. “So I decided to die in your arms.”

  “What nonsense.” She spoke with unnecessary harshness because she was so intensely aware of his rigid arousal. “All it needs is cleaning and a bandage. Sit down.” With a rough gesture she pushed him onto the edge of the bed. Dipping her towel into the hot water she set about washing the cut on his flank. Fortunately, she had tucked away in her clothing chest the last remnant of the rolled linen bandage they had used during their ride from Regneville to Caen, and this she wrapped around his waist. She worked quickly, wanting Desmond to cover himself again, so she wouldn’t give way to her longing to look her fill. By the time the maidservant returned Elaine was tying off the end of the bandage.

  “My lady?” The maidservant nearly dropped the tray she was carrying. She stared entranced at Desmond’s naked back as he rose and walked to the table where the water jug was.

  “Put the tray down,” Elaine ordered the girl. “Sir Desmond will want to rest without being disturbed, so I will dress myself. You may leave now.”

  “Yes, my lady.” The servant lingered long enough to see Desmond begin to wash himself, and it seemed to Elaine that she departed with great reluctance.

  “I hope you realize,” Elaine said to Desmond, “she will go straight to Royce and tell him you are here.”

  “I don’t greatly care what she tells Royce. Cadwallon and I have already made our reports to him, so he is presently with King Henry, where I expect he will be occupied for several hours. Royce is unlikely to come bursting through your door to rescue me.”

  “To rescue you?”

  “There.” Desmond tossed the wet towel aside and dumped the dirty water out the window. “I remain unshaven, but otherwise I am reasonably clean and all of the blood is gone. Now, may I die in your arms?”

  “I don’t know what Royce has told you,” Elaine began nervously.

  “He cannot have you.”

  “He doesn’t want me.” She gaped at him in astonishment. “Whatever made you think he does?”

  “Royce is very fond of you.”

  “He was my sister’s godfather, and my own father’s best friend. I think of him as a dear uncle.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I don’t want to have to kill him.”

  “Desmond, I fear you’ve taken leave of your senses. I know you are overtired after your long ride—”

  “My senses are all still with me.” He caught her around the waist and pulled her so close that she could no longer pretend to ignore his jutting arousal. “Can’t you feel the most urgent of my senses probing against your senses?”

  “Stop that.” She made a weak attempt to shove him aside. “Desmond, please. We must talk.”

  “Later.” His mouth seared the skin of her shoulder, his lips tracing the wide neckline of her linen robe. Elaine began to tremble.

  “You said you have something to tell me,” she reminded him.

  “I’ll tell you afterward.” He began to nibble on her earlobe.

  “Desmond—”

  Then she was on the bed and he lay close beside her. His strong hands pushed her robe up and drew it over her head. His mouth caught hers, stopping her weak protests, halting any attempt at serious conversation. Or of thought. His stubbly beard scratched her breasts and her belly, but she didn’t care. She opened to him quickly, easily, and he entered her in a rush of pleasure, stretching her still untutored body, filling her and, finally, driving her to a state of delicious madness.

  They found completion with his mouth over hers to quell her wild cries, his hands holding her wrists at either side of her head. Imprisoned thus in his embrace, aware that such warmth and joy would likely be short-lived, still she had never been so happy.

  A long time later, with the morning sounds of the castle stirring outside the door and the window, Desmond lifted his head to look at her.

  “You are mine,” he said. “Now I can claim you.”

  “I believe you just did, and rather thoroughly, too.” She smiled at him, preparing to tell him about her enlarged dowry and about Royce’s advice that she admit her feelings to him. Desmond kissed her, stopping the words before she could speak them.

  “It’s time to tell you my news,” he said.

  “Very well.” She put a little distance between them, so she coul
d see his face more clearly, without his touch to make her want to move back into his arms and agree with whatever he said. She expected to hear of his next assignment, some difficult and dangerous task that King Henry or Royce wanted done at once. An assignment that would take him away from her. She was glad she hadn’t spoken.

  “My mother had a cousin, a man named Robert,” Desmond said. “I met him only once. My father disliked him and refused to let him visit Ashendown. Robert died some months ago, leaving no direct male heir. In his will he asked that his lands be evenly divided between my brother Magnus and me. An hour before I rode off to Evreux, King Henry informed me that he has approved the arrangement. Thus, I am now in possession of lands and a manor house in Devon.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Elaine said, momentarily diverted from her own concerns and from her sadness at the thought of losing him. “Isn’t Cadwallon’s castle located in Devon?” she asked.

  “He tells me that my new lands lie close to his. In fact, Cadwallon has proposed a marriage between the son he expects his beloved Janet to deliver in a few months and any future daughter of mine.” Desmond grinned. “I informed him that I intend to produce only sons, so if he wants the union, Janet will have to bear a girl.”

  “What are you saying?” Elaine looked at him in surprise. She’d formed the impression that Desmond didn’t much like Cadwallon, though she thought he had begun to respect the big man.

  “I’m not saying it very well, am I?” Desmond touched her cheek with a gentle hand. “Elaine, will you marry me, live with me in Devon, and have children with me? Will you, in time, agree to allow one of our children to marry one of Cadwallon’s?”

  “I know you don’t want to give up spying.”

  “Indeed not. I enjoy the challenge of matching wits with King Henry’s enemies too much ever to relinquish that special excitement. You know what I mean; you’ve felt the thrill of it, yourself. Still, Cadwallon has managed to continue to work for Royce whenever he’s needed, in spite of being married. I can do the same, if you will agree to marry me.”