Blue Heaven, Black Night

by Heather Graham

  With her chin lifted, her hands clasped before her in prayer, she was indeed a glorious silhouette: slender, swan-like throat, lovely, delicate profile, high breasts, and a trim, graceful figure. The silk of her gown seemed to float about her. She might well have been an angel—had he not known she was far more a creature of hell than of heaven.

  He tensed suddenly, grinding his teeth together as a cramp twisted its way through his abdomen. The day had been pure torture, with the aftereffects of the poison still in his system. With the renewed pain came renewed anger. It had shocked him that she could hate him so deeply as to poison him. And he knew he had been poisoned. Through the wine.

  He had spoken of his knowledge to only one other; Marshal and the others believed that rotten meat had made him ill. But in his years of service he had, more often than he liked to remember, been the victim of bad food. This had been different. This had been a poison carefully administered. . . by Elise de Bois.

  It made his fascination with her all the more galling. She was poison herself. Secretive, furtive—living out a major deception. He had wanted to see her again; now he wanted nothing more than to forget her. When he was near her, a part of him wanted to strangle her. Another part of him wanted to strip away her silk and fur and all vestiges of the world of nobility and chivalry and drag her into a bed of raw earth.

  It was not the pain in his gut that caused him to clench his teeth a second time. It was the gnawing desire to know her again, and then sweep away her memory.

  She despised him enough to kill him. He owed her nothing. Within two weeks, even barring bad weather, they would reach Eleanor; Elise would no longer be his concern. Shortly after that, Richard would have attended to all his affairs in his European holdings and he would arrive in London for his coronation.

  As his duly crowned monarch, Richard would then settle with Bryan for all past services as promised.

  There would be Gwyneth for a bride, and all her vast wealth and titles. Hard won, but prizes well worth winning for a man who craved land—and a home.

  The monks finished a chant; Richard, Coeur de Lion spun about and exited the abbey. Bryan and Will Marshal exchanged dry glances and followed Richard from the abbey.

  The sun was gleaming down upon his head, brilliantly enhancing the Plantagenet gold and copper of his thick crop of hair. He halted suddenly, causing his mantle to swing about him majestically as he spun about to encounter Bryan and Will.

  “I trust you’re ready to journey onward?”

  “Aye, Your Grace,” Will replied blandly.

  “Hurry to my mother! She will act as my regent, and in my name she will have the power to release other prisoners—men held not for malicious crimes, but by the whim of Henry, or his administrators. That will set my reign off with a benign touch, don’t you agree?”

  “Aye,” Bryan agreed. “A powerful man may well grant mercy.”

  Richard nodded, pleased with himself, pleased with Bryan’s reply. “And while you travel with Eleanor, I give you something grave to think upon.”

  “What is that, Your Grace?” Bryan inquired curiously.

  Richard slammed a fist into his palm. “Money! My good fellows! My father’s and my battles have emptied England’s coffers. I owe Philip of France the twenty thousand marks my father owed him—and I will need much, much more to raise an army and take it to the Holy Land.” Richard paused, looking up and squinting at the noonday sun. From somewhere, a sparrow was chirping out a song. “I was but a lad when I heard that Saladin had taken Jerusalem with his army of infidels. I have dreamed since of a holy quest. And now, to fulfill my father’s vows, I will set forth on that quest. But I will need money to do so!”

  “We’ll think about coinage, Richard,” Bryan promised dryly.

  “Think on it well, and remember—I would gladly sell London if I had but a buyer! I will raise the funds for my Holy Crusade!”

  Marshal and Bryan glanced at each other, then nodded.

  “And take care of the Lady Elise. I entrust her safety entirely to you. Remember that.”

  Startled, Bryan glanced into Richard’s eyes. He had assumed at first that Richard was sending Elise de Bois to Eleanor on little more than whim; now he saw that even the Lion-Heart seemed to have a soft spot for the girl.

  It was vastly irritating.

  “We will protect her to the best of our abilities,” Bryan replied blandly. “Yet, perhaps she should not accompany us. Marshal and I travel with but five other knights; there may be dangers along the way—”

  “What dangers?” Richard interrupted impatiently. “We begin an era of peace. And I send her with the two most experienced knights in Christendom. She will be safe. Now, leave me. By God’s grace, we shall meet shortly for my coronation!”

  They were ready to leave Fontevrault. Their destriers were saddled; the horses were laden with supplies. A day’s ride would take them to the Channel. With any luck, a few days’ travel would bring them to England’s shore, and a few more days would bring them to Eleanor.

  Bryan and Marshal started for the horses, where the accompanying knights awaited them. Bryan halted with a sudden frown.

  “How does the duchess travel? I see no form of conveyance—”

  Will laughed. “She rides as we do.”

  “It is a distance we travel—”

  “Don’t worry, my friend. She rides as well as any man.”

  Bryan shrugged and mounted his own horse, so recently retrieved from the stalls at Montoui. “Where is she?”

  “Taking her leave of Richard.”

  Bryan frowned as he glanced around to see that Richard was offering Elise his own mantle to cover her gown. It engulfed her, and something about the pretty scene was annoying. He glanced down at Will. “She rides with no lady’s maid?”

  “She is not alone. Joanna, wife of Sir Theo Baldwin, accompanies us, too.” Will shrugged. “She is accustomed to following her husband about in battle, and neither woman should hinder our speed.”

  Women were always a hindrance in travel, Bryan thought, but he said nothing. He knew the Lady Joanna; she was a spirited, gray-haired matron, blunt and honest, and he liked her well. Better she than a simpering young maid, unaccustomed to the rigors of a hard ride.

  “I leave the ladies to you, then, my friend,” Bryan told Marshal, and Marshal laughed.

  Bryan nudged his horse to the fore of the party, and raised an arm to Richard. Richard raised his hand high in return. Bryan noticed vaguely that Will helped Elise up onto her Arabian mare. He started out, setting the pace, a rugged one.

  It was a beautiful day to travel, Bryan thought vaguely as he rode. It was full summer; the Angevin hills were lush with greenery, birds sang all around them, and wildflowers grew in profusion. The sun was hot, but the breeze was cool. They stayed upon the main roads, for Bryan had the journey planned. It was possible to reach the crossing near Eu in three days; with the women, it might well have taken seven. Bryan had determined that they would spend no more than four days on the Continent. They would bypass Richard’s castles along the way—that at Le Mans, where Henry had been born, and certainly that at Rouen. They were not on a journey to be entertained and pampered as Richard’s messengers; they were on a mission of urgency. Tonight they would seek simple shelter with the monks at the Abbey of St. John the Martyr, south of La Ferté-Bernard.

  Elise was silent as she rode; their speed was not conducive to conversation, but had it been, she would still have chosen quiet. She could not help notice the beauty of the summer day: the deep grasses that grew over the sloping hills, the fervent hunter’s green of the forests. This was the heart of Henry’s lands; his Angevin domains. This was a beauty Henry had long cherished. Henry was dead; his eyes were forever closed to the beauty.

  As the long hours passed, Elise sighed slightly and shuddered, and a growing thirst drew her mind from grief. Mile after mile they rode; Stede did not stop. Her throat was parched and she ached from the hours in the atrociously uncomfortable s
idesaddle. Misery made her think of Bryan, and thinking of him made her ever more miserable. To stave her mind from both grief and discomfort, she allowed herself to give free rein to revenge, and she mulled over many a conversation in her mind in which she found the right words to convince Eleanor of Aquitaine that she must not allow Richard to reward Bryan Stede.

  When the sun began to fall and her mare’s steps started to falter, Elise grew more and more annoyed with Bryan. Will, perhaps sensing her thoughts, came up beside her.

  “It will not be long,” he promised. She tried to smile.

  By dusk, they were still many miles away from their destination. Marshal rode forward to join Bryan. “Perhaps we should stop and make other plans for the night,” he suggested.

  Bryan shook his head. “It isn’t that much farther, Will.”

  Will shrugged. “Nay, but the terrain is rough for riding in darkness.”

  Bryan glanced at Will. “Have we complaints?”

  “No . . .”

  “Then we will ride.”

  Elise was ready to fall out of her saddle by the time they reached the Abbey of St. John the Martyr. Dear God! How could a man ride so hard without thought or care for thirst or comfort? But as they clattered into the abbey yard, Elise found Bryan Stede’s implacable gaze upon her, and she determined that she would show no signs of exhaustion—or weakness. She met his eyes coolly, then laughed radiantly at something Will Marshal said—she didn’t know what—as he came to help her from her horse.

  Henry, Elise quickly discovered, had been a patron to these monks. Bryan knew the abbot well—it seemed, in fact, that they were good friends. They were greeted warmly, applauded when it was learned that they were to free the queen, and welcomed for the night’s rest. The abbey was small, but the summer harvest had been rich, and they were well fed with grapes and greens, trout and river eel.

  Throughout the meal, Elise occasionally felt Bryan’s eyes upon her. She ignored him and ate as one famished, which she was.

  The Lady Joanna was a pleasant enough companion; she reminded Elise of Jeanne. She was decades older than Elise, and seemed not at all discouraged by the speed and conditions of their journey, and so Elise decided that she could not be so very tired.

  But despite the hardness of her bed in the small, stark room that she and Joanna were given to share, Elise slept almost instantly.

  Dawn came with a shrill of birds, and a harsh rap upon the door to the tiny cell-like room. Elise rubbed her eyes furiously, and realized that the Lady Joanna was no longer sleeping in the room.

  The door was flung open without her having given a reply. She instinctively drew the covers over her linen shift; Stede stood there. He barely glanced at her. “Up, Elise, we ride soon,” he said simply. Then the door was shut again with a sharp thud.

  “Ride where you like!” she muttered beneath her breath, longing to throw something after him.

  But just then the Lady Joanna reappeared, bustling with energy, her cheery smile in place upon her plump cheeks. “There’s boiled eggs and kidneys on the table, dear, and just beyond our window is the most delightful trickle of a stream! Hurry now, dear, for we must be off.”

  Elise smiled wanly and forced herself to crawl from the bed with a pretense of vigor. She rushed to the window. “A stream?” she queried.

  “Right there. See?”

  She did see. It was a narrow, babbling brook, leading to a lake beyond the abbey. Elise hesitated only a second, then leaped to the stonework window frame and smiled back at the Lady Joanna. “I’ll be just a moment!”

  Lady Joanna did not chastise her for crawling through the window in nothing but her shift. She laughed. “Aye, that I were young again! But, hurry, dear, lest a monk should come along! They’re not all saints, you know.”

  Elise nodded, then hurried out.

  It was barely dawn, but the sun was promising a sweet and wonderful warmth. Elise ran to the brook and hurtled her length against the rich grass on its bank, dipping her hands into the clear water, and joyously splashing it over her face. It was cold, but it felt wonderful. She dipped into it again and again, drinking deeply, splashing her face again and again. She was halfway drenched, she realized ruefully. The bracing water made her feel very alive—refreshed, young, eager—and strong. Whatever Stede could dole out, she could take. And she would think of some way to convince Eleanor in a charming way that Stede deserved nothing. Nothing!

  With the cheerful thought in mind that she would prevail, she at last rose regretfully to her knees, then to her feet. She turned to run and sneak back in through her window, but when she would have moved, she froze instead.

  He was there, between her and the window—watching her, and apparently not at all pleased to be doing so. His eyes met hers, traveled slowly to her feet, then rose upward again with no sign of emotion. “We are ready to leave,” he told her. “You hold back the entire party—and you cast yourself into ridiculous danger.”

  “Danger—” she echoed.

  He strode to her with air of annoyance, causing her to gasp as he clutched the fabric of her shift at the valley of her breasts. “You might as well be walking around naked!” he accused her. “And since your virtue is next to godliness . . .”

  She could feel his fingers against her flesh; they brought a flush to her cheeks and an oath of fury to her lips.

  “Let me go!” she told him, wrenching past him. Over her shoulder she added, “I did not expect to find a leering knight at my heels!”

  He caught up to her, spinning her back around to face him. “You must learn that things are not always what you expect—Duchess. You will not wander around so again.”

  She said nothing, but lifted her chin to him. He released her with a little shove. “Get dressed—and get to the courtyard. Quickly.”

  On this, she did not disobey him, for she did not want to cause a delay in their journey. But she missed her meal in her haste, and as the morning passed, she was certain that her stomach growled audibly. She rode in misery once again, and more. Where he had touched her, her flesh continued to feel a heat. And her body, off and on, felt chills, and then a shuddering heat. All the more she determined that he would not lead life as he planned, with his arrogance rewarded. She would see that he was brought low.

  Bryan rode with his sense of brooding tension increasing with the storm clouds that more and more covered the sky. He could not forget the sight of her, or the sound of her laughter when she had thought herself unobserved. He had been angry that she played with their time; more so because she had not realized that most men—even those promised to God—could be dangerous if provoked.

  And, by God, she had been provocative! Hair spilling and spilling about her like a red-gold extension of the sun, her shift so damp against her body that the firm roundness of her breasts had been clearly defined down to the deep and dusky rose of their peaks . . .

  She is a curse upon me, he groaned in silence. She despises me; my future lies elsewhere, yet she plagues my mind and body hour after hour. She haunted him, possessed him . . .

  The sky suddenly broke loose. Rain poured down upon them. They had reached the mountains, the roads were treacherous, and it seemed to Bryan that they crept along in sheer, chilling misery. But they could not halt, not for a summer rain. They had to keep their travel swift.

  That night their accommodations were poor. They slept in a hunting lodge, all before one fire. Their meal had been tough fowl.

  Another day of rain met them, another night at an abbey where they were able to bathe, and enjoy a fair meal once more. But the next morning held true to the sun, and by that night they neared Eu.

  They came to a small village just south of Eu and near the port where several ferries crossed the Channel. Bryan decided they might as well stay the night. From the briskness of the air, it seemed that the rain would come soon. Tomorrow they would be ready to take to the sea.

  Marshal rode to meet him at the front of the line. “There is a lodge here where
I’ve stayed many a time. They’ve a room suitable for Elise and Joanna. We can sleep in the main room.”

  Bryan nodded his assent. “I know the place; I had it in mind myself.” He called out the order to the other men. He swore softly as he saw the five armored warriors—as well as Will—stumble over one another to assist Elise de Bois.

  Well, he would have no more of her. Let her poison another man’s wine.

  Dismounting from his horse, he threw the reins to a street urchin, telling the boy that all the horses were to be stabled. Then, ignoring the hospitality of the tavern, he tossed his mantle over his shoulder and walked toward the sea.

  He did not know how long he stared across the Channel, allowing himself to dream that he would, indeed, come to have a place to call home, when a scrape upon the earth alerted him to the fact that someone approached. Spinning about, he saw Marshal—equipped with a large skin of ale.

  Bryan smiled broadly as he accepted the skin and drank thirstily. “Thanks, Will. The thought—and the ale—is well appreciated.”

  “Thought they might be. What have you been doing out here?”

  Bryan laughed dryly. “Dreaming.”

  “Hmm. I’ve been wondering about my own fortune through the day.”

  “Nothing to wonder about, Will. You will shortly be Earl of Pembroke. Lord of Leinster—and God knows what else!”

  “I know so little of women. I have heard that Isabel de Clare is very young, and very beautiful. I wonder how she will accept a battle-scarred and war-weary knight.”

  “She will shortly know you for the man you are, and that is all that you will need,” Bryan advised. “Treat her as you do our fair duchess, and she will surely consider you gallant.”

  In the darkness of the night, Bryan felt Will’s eyes suddenly sharp upon him. Had he spoken with unintended bitterness?

  “Why the words of sarcasm, Bryan?”

  “Was I sarcastic? I didn’t mean to be so.”

  “You are hard on her, Bryan. You should solve your differences, for you are both favorites with Richard.”