“Stephen?”
“I cannot marry you,” he said gently. “John wants this match between you and Savaric. The only man in the kingdom who can refute his wishes is King Richard and you well know how Richard feels about me.”
She stared at him. “But if you begged Richard…surely, even just to spite John. You know what that family is like!”
Stephen shook his head. “I would have to go to Rouen to speak to the king. Even if he gave his blessing, do you truly believe John would wait for me to return to England with the king’s orders? He would have you married to Savaric by sunset of the day he learned why I had gone to Normandy.” He gripped her hand. “I have no doubt he would discover why I had gone. He has spies planted all around his brother, just as Richard has spies watching John.”
Helena sighed.
“I could not take you with me, either,” Stephen continued. “We would get no farther than Dover before John’s men would catch up with us. Richard wouldn’t lift a finger to support me.”
Helena could only look at him, dumb with misery.
Stephen took her other hand in his big, warm one. “Consider this too, Elen. What if, by some miracle, Richard gave his blessing and John did not stand in our way and we married? What then, not-Isobel? Everyone would expect me to claim your dowry, the one that is not really yours to give.”
She hadn’t been aware of them building until two tears fell from her eyes and dripped onto their clasped hands. Stephen loosened his grip on one hand and lifted his fingers to wipe the moisture from Helena’s cheeks.
“You revealed to me a whole other world,” he said. “It lies beyond the borders of the court and the church. The world you came from. The one you hide even from me. You could return there, could you not?”
The suggestion acted like a jolt. Helena straightened as denial mixed uncomfortably with indignation. “No! I cannot leave! Not now! I am so close…”
“You would not abandon your cause even to avoid Savaric?”
Helena thought of her father, dying in a lonely field at the hands of barons who hid behind laws and the favor of the man whose identity she sought. Her father’s ignoble death must be righted, or she would never live in peace.
“I cannot give up,” Helena said at last. “Not even for fear of Savaric. Besides, the council cannot last forever. In a few days we will be released from the king’s summons and can return to Worcester.”
“That will not stop Savaric forever,” Stephen warned.
Helena remembered Robert’s note, his instructions to her to return to York. He was tracking the man she needed to speak to. All she had to do was get herself to York. Somehow. “I just need a little time,” she told Stephen. “I can perhaps delay Savaric long enough to do what I must.”
Stephen considered her for a long moment in silence, thoughts hidden behind his dark eyes. “I cannot tell you to choose another course,” he said at last. “I do not need to tell you how dangerous the course you have chosen could become, do I?”
Fighting off Savaric’s attention, while giving him no cause to force the issue? Helena shivered. “No, you do not need to warn me of the danger.”
Stephen cupped her cheek. “You are a courageous one, indeed, my sweet Elen.”
His touch reminded Helena of the heavy, languorous throb Stephen’s kiss had created. It had dissipated now and she wished to capture it again. She wanted to take away the ache in her heart, to forget the woes of her world in his arms. Helena stretched to touch her lips to Stephen’s mouth and felt his hands come around her waist. They pulled her closer, as his lips opened beneath hers. Experimentally, she probed with her own tongue. Stephen groaned and crushed her against him, one hand snaking up to hold her head while he plundered her mouth with his and rained her face with kisses that were like caresses.
Helena’s breasts pushed against his chest and she felt their tips grow hard and sensitive to every delicious touch. The heavy throb and pull of her body had returned. She closed her eyes and let instincts she had not known she possessed lead her hands and mouth. She was aware of a sense of rightness guiding her and was unafraid.
Until Stephen groaned again, a sound ripped from the depths of his soul. He pushed Helena from him. He gripped her wrists and pulled her hands from him, as well.
“What have I done?” Helena cried.
“Nothing. Nothing. It is not you.” With a deep sigh he rested his forehead against her shoulder.
Helena freed her wrists and touched Stephen’s thick, black hair, feeling the short ends tickle her palms.
“We should not indulge ourselves this way. It could lead to your ruin,” he said heavily.
Helena thought she understood his concern. “I will never marry anyone but you.” The words were easier to speak when she did not have to look at him directly. They were the truth but a difficult truth to speak.
He lifted his head. “You don’t know what you are saying.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You are courageous beyond belief, Elen but you are still only a woman, who must obey her liege lord and king. You have no say in this matter.”
“I know what is in my heart.”
“I have experienced firsthand that the court cares little for what one believes or wants.” His mouth curled at the corner, a cynical smile. “It can be ruthless.”
Helena’s heart thundered uneasily. “I stand by my word. I will marry no one but you.”
Stephen lifted Helena’s hand and slowly kissed her palm. His lips and tongue and hot breath seared an imprint on her skin. Then he placed the hand over his heart. She felt it beating heavily. “If a day comes when we can marry, Elen, then I will marry you gladly. I will look for a way to make that day come. I will spend the rest of my life looking for it, if I must.”
It was an oath as unbreakable as a knight’s oath of allegiance.
* * * * *
They crept into Oxford just before dawn. Contrary to Helena’s belief, Stephen assured her the postern gate would let her back into the town.
As they worked their way through the forest, Stephen stopped once or twice to dig in the ground near large trees. Finally, he grunted with satisfaction and pulled up long, thin roots. Helena recognized what he was doing. She had seen Robert’s men do this when they needed rope and none was at hand. But where had Stephen learned this? He was not at home in the forest. Nevertheless, he coiled the makeshift rope and looped it over the hilt of his knife, under his cloak.
“Now show me the gate,” he said.
Helena led him to where it was hidden, slipping up under the shadow of the palisade. Stephen handed his cloak to Helena and contemplated the wall. He took out the living rope and his knife and hefted it. It was a warrior’s knife. Sturdy, with a strong blade. He turned the knife sideways and fastened the thin end of the root to the middle of it, just above the guard. He tested the knot, pulling hard.
Then he stepped back from the wall. He let the knife dangle from the end of the rope and held it just above the ground. He rocked the knife back and forth, watching the wall. Then he swung hard and let the rope go. The heavy knife flew in an arc up over the wall and fell down the other side. Even before it had started its downward swing, Stephen pulled the rope back toward him, shortening the fall.
The knife clattered against the top of the palisade fence. Stephen hitched the rope, which slid between two of the points and he quickly yanked it tight. The knife on the other side pulled up across two or three planks and acted as a wedge. He walked right up to the wall, holding the rope taut, until he was directly beneath the point where the rope emerged from between the planks. He hauled on the rope, testing it to see if it would hold his weight. Satisfied, he turned to Helena.
“Wait against the wall.”
She nodded and moved back into its shadow.
Stephen scaled the wall, hauling himself up hand over hand, pushing against the wall with his feet. The pointed tips of the planks did not seem to hinder him, for he slipped over the top quickly and
disappeared. She heard the impact of his landing on the other side and watched as the rope whipped over the wall. He had brought the knife down with him.
Helena moved to the hatch, which was pushed open as she reached it. She climbed inside.
“Why does no one come to investigate? They must have heard your landing,” she whispered and handed Stephen his cloak.
“Because this hatch is a common point of entry and exit. It would pay to turn a blind eye.” He dogged the latch again and took her hand. “I cannot go farther with you.”
She nodded. If they were seen together, the least consequence would be John hurrying her marriage to Savaric.
Stephen glanced around. The slim alleyway was deserted. He took her face in his hands. In the growing dawn light she saw the light of life and zest in his eyes that she had put there. “This afternoon, when the ladies gather after the noon meal, can you come to me?”
Some of her unhappiness at his imminent departure lifted. He wanted to see her again. “Where?”
“That room where we met.”
“The spindle room.”
“Yes.”
“I will come.”
He kissed her, a slow lingering kiss.
Footfalls sounded nearby. Stephen kissed Helena again, lightly. He touched a finger to her lips, indicating she should be silent and then slipped along the alleyway to another passage, turned into it and was gone.
Helena hurried down the alley toward the narrow street she had used when she had first come this way the previous evening. The town was waking around her. People murmured behind windows and doors. Smoke from cooking fires curled in the air. She knew she must hurry before someone noticed her absence.
Helena slipped in the pantry door just as the first of the kitchen servants shuffled into the room. Maud, the cook, was in the pantry when Helena opened the door and clutched her ample apron to her face.
“Mercy me, my lady! Thank God it’s you. When I saw the door unlatched this morning I didn’t know what to think! I dursn’t bar it again, just in case.”
“Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”
Maud shuffled closer and lowered her voice. “I ’eard what ’appened last night at dinner, my lady, and I thought, well, I guessed you might have gone to speak to ’im.”
Of course, the news would have spread. It was not just those at the head table who understood the significance of John’s request. Maud had helped Stephen gather food for her when she had been injured.
She pressed Maud’s arm and put her finger to her lips. “You would not betray us, would you?”
“Me? Stand in the way of true love? Never!” Maud sighed. “’E’s such a ’andsome one!”
Helena smiled. Queen Eleanore’s favorite stories of courtly love and romance were serving an unexpected purpose for her now. Helena had always dismissed them as trivial tales.
“I must return to my chamber,” she told the cook. “It must look like I have spent the night there.”
“Then you’d best be going, my lady.” Maud stood aside and Helena gave her arm another squeeze of thanks as she left.
* * * * *
Helena made it back to her room undetected, for only the servants stirred at this hour. She washed tiredness from her eyes with water so cold it had formed a thin skin of ice during the night. The cold was shocking but served to wake her sufficiently that she resembled one who had slept soundly and innocently in her bed.
Helena discarded the dusty, crumpled gown she had spent the night in and donned a cleaner one before she hurried to the hall to partake of the morning bread. She had nearly finished her meager meal when Catherine slid onto the bench next to her. The older woman’s face was as white as milk.
“The herbs did not do their work,” Helena guessed.
“The ache has not arrived,” Catherine assured her. “My sleep was uncommonly thick and heavy. I feel quite light and wasted this morning, Isobel. ’tis far better than the headache, so don’t fuss.”
It appeared Catherine’s preoccupation with her head had driven away any recall of the previous evening. It was better so. Helena did not want to deal with questions regarding Savaric and her apparent reluctance. She preferred to keep her thoughts upon Stephen and not sully them with the dark foreboding cast upon her whenever she thought of Savaric. “What are the tasks for today?” she asked Catherine. “What can I do?”
They fell to planning the myriad tasks they should complete before the evening meal. Even though they were guests in the household, there were still a great many duties they had brought with them from Worcester. Chief among them were endless items to be sewn—tunics, shirts, kirtles, household and other personal linens and embroidery.
It was unusual for Catherine to leave her household. Usually, lords and their valuable allegiances were courted at Catherine’s home hearth. It was only because of Isobel’s professed need to establish herself at court that Catherine had taken the extraordinary step of traveling with her husband to Oxford. The calling of the Great Council was an ideal opportunity for Isobel to meet other people of her rank.
They stayed in the hall, choosing a table close by the fire, for the day had brought a sullen, dirty gray sky. A chill draft rattled the tapestries on the wall. There were a few other wives of barons as guests and they too, had chosen to stay. The hall was a companionable place.
Close to the sun’s zenith news rustled through the hall like an errant summer breeze. The council had been dismissed.
“Dismissed?” Catherine asked sharply of the woman who brought the news to their table along with a pitcher of mulled wine to take away the chill of the day.
“Sir Hubert Walter announced an end to business just this hour past. We’re free to return to our homes.” The woman leaned to pour a cupful of wine for Catherine but Catherine waved her away.
“No, if the council is indeed at an end, then we have much to do. Isobel!”
Helena looked up from the hem she had been staring at blindly while she dealt with this sudden development.
Catherine was folding her linens into the workbox. “Come, Isobel, we must confirm this news and then pack if it is true. Come.” She rose.
“You seem pleased to be leaving,” Helena said slowly. How could they leave now? She had planned on two days yet. What of her need to reach York? She had no idea how she might manage to eject Catherine from Worcester once they had returned there and settled down again.
“Pleased? Yes, I am pleased!” Catherine said, winding thread with quick, precise movements. “Home! I will see William again. Every time I see him I swear he has grown another finger’s width.” She smiled, all the muzziness of her morning’s state evaporated. “I will be pleased to leave this place,” she added, looking around. “It needs a woman’s touch.”
Leaving! Leaving Stephen! How could she leave now? Helena crushed the shirt in her fist, careless of the imbedded needle. It couldn’t be true! The fates would not be so cruel as to show her what was most precious in her world, only to snatch it away!
Chapter Ten
By the noon meal most of the council had returned and the news was confirmed. It was time to leave Oxford. Catherine was not the only one eager to return home. Christmas was nearly upon them and too, the midwinter feast. Midwinter heralded the shutting of some roads and rivers against travel. They wanted to leave as soon as possible so they might reach home before inclement weather closed in.
After the noon meal, Helena escaped Catherine’s chamber and the flurry of packing. The house was in an uproar as guests readied themselves to take their leave. She doubted anyone would notice her pass even if she jogged an elbow.
Servants fetched packs, chests, food for the journey and other necessary supplies. In the cold, dank, afternoon light the passages were as black as night and the sconces were lit. The door to the spindle room was shut. Helena glanced behind her before she pushed it open and slipped inside, shutting it quickly behind her.
Stephen was already there. He gathered her into his a
rms almost as soon as the door was shut, kissing her hard and thoroughly. She was borne backward and felt the wall against her spine. His mouth moved against hers.
“I can’t stay long,” she whispered against his lips, before sinking into the delightful sea of sensations his hands and mouth created. Everything ceased to matter when she was in his arms. Even time seemed to stand still while Helena hung suspended, an entity made only of the most intense sensations, with no thought, no reason.
Until, finally, she found herself again, held still in his arms, head against his chest, feeling a desolation that came close to despair. “The council has been dismissed,” she whispered.
“I know.” His voice rumbled against her cheek.
“We will depart this place today. Within the hour, if Catherine has her way.”
“Ah, Elen, we knew this would come.”
“But not so soon! Not now!” She looked up at him. “I cannot leave now!”
He rested his big hand against her cheek. “You would rather face Savaric than leave?”
“If I cannot escape him, even at Worcester, then I’d rather face him when you are near.”
He let her go, walked to the window and stared out at the rain. “I must go too, Elen.”
“Go? To where? Brittany?”
“I don’t know yet. I have received letters from my bailiffs. There are problems…” He shook his head. “The details are not important.”
“But where will you be? Where will I find you if I have need of you?”
“When I know, I’ll send word.”
“And if trouble arrives before word from you?”
Stephen glanced at Helena and smiled. “I suspect you are a capable manager of trouble, not-Isobel. With your knife, courage and your nimble mind, I have no doubt you will survive long enough for me to reach you.”
“I do not share your confidence.”
“You will be safely ensconced in Worcester castle. No one has ever breached those walls, despite the ravages of the Welsh for the last twenty years.”
“Yes, but Hubert didn’t roll down the drawbridge for them, either,” Helena pointed out. “Besides, if I am to complete my quest, I must reach York and soon.”
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