“Grasp his arm.”
They dragged him to the bed without too much difficulty. Getting him into it was another matter altogether. As strong as Sir Hugh was, he had to strain to lift de Rhys’s dead weight. He got him to the edge of the mattress finally and let him collapse face-down into the linen sheets.
The stained linen sheets. Hugh’s sharp glance took in the reddish smears and cut to Jocelyn. “So it’s done?”
“It’s done.”
He nodded once, a quick jerk of his chin, and maneuvered de Rhys’s legs onto the mattress. When the man was fully laid out, the castellan regarded her in the flickering light from the fire.
“Had it been a husband you’d bedded with, you could show these sheets as proof that you came to him a maid.”
She was all too aware of that. Aware, as well, that she could not use the sheets as proof of her lost virginity. The king would question whether the stains were the result of her monthly courses. Or whether she’d cut herself. Or sprinkled sheep’s blood on the sheets.
She didn’t doubt Baldwin would have his personal physician examine her. Perhaps in front of witnesses. The prospect made Jocelyn writhe inside, but she would endure such a humiliation, and gladly, if it turned the Emir of Damascus against marriage to her.
“I’ll tell my women the stains are from de Rhys’s wounds,” she said with another hasty revision to her scheme.
“If you don’t want them to know what occurred here this night,” Sir Hugh said gruffly, “you’d best wash yourself first. You have the scent of him on you.”
In her flustered state, Jocelyn had forgotten the yeasty stickiness between her thighs. She guessed it, too, was tinged with red. And obviously gave off a distinctive scent. That an old and loyal vassal should have to remind her of such an intimate matter brought heat to her cheeks.
“I’ll tend to it.”
Nodding, he turned to leave. “Sir Hugh…”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
His brow creased into deep lines. “I fear you’ll be cursing rather than thanking me before this sorry business is done with, milady.”
He took the tower stairs again and closed the door behind him. Jocelyn cleansed herself quickly, using scented oils and a linen towel she wadded up with her torn bliaut. She stuffed both in her clothes chest to be disposed of later. Only then did she go to the door and call for her page.
The remaining hours of the night passed in a seemingly endless blur.
To her dismay, de Rhys soon grew feverish. She and Lady Constance, wife to the knight who governed Fortemur’s armory and a woman with great knowledge of medicinal herbs, took turns spreading soothing balms on his inflamed back and bathing his sweat-drenched body. At one point he became so flushed that they feared for his life.
Racked with guilt that she’d brought him to such a state, Jocelyn sent for the castle priest. As gentle, elderly Brother Joseph prayed over the sick man, she sank to her knees on her intricately carved prie-dieu. Head bowed, she pressed her palms together so hard that pain shot through her wrists. Yet the prayers that normally fell by rote from her lips wouldn’t come.
She’d fornicated with this man. Until she confessed that grievous sin and did penance, how could she ask God’s mercy on him or on herself? And until de Rhys was safely away, how could she confess?
Not that Father Joseph would betray her. The gray-haired priest had lived at Fortemur for most of his life. But he, too, was of the Church. If de Rhys muttered something in his delirium, if the good father learned through other means than confession what had occurred here, his conscience might compel him to report the matter through the Church hierarchy to the Grand Master of the Knights of the Temple. The Templars’ rules forbade them to so much as speak to a female. Having sexual concourse with one would cost a Templar his habit, his weapons, and his warhorse for a year or more.
Assuming, that is, de Rhys was even accepted into the order. Politics weighed with the Knights Templar as heavily as it did with the Knights Hospitaller here in the East. While both groups owed allegiance only to the Pope, their continued existence in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem depended on the survival of the kingdom itself. The Templars’ Grand Master would not look favorably on an aspirant who threatened an alliance King Baldwin was determined to secure.
Her fingers locked so tight her knuckles showed white, Jocelyn prayed most heartily for de Rhys’s quick recovery and departure from her life.
He quieted enough by dawn’s light for her to leave him in Lady Constance’s care while she attended Mass and broke her fast in the great hall with the rest of the keep’s residents.
Word had already spread of the stranger in their midst. Between the clink of ale cups and clatter of wooden spoons, she caught snippets of the gossip that was life’s blood to the more than three hundred souls who resided within Fortemur’s massive walls. Only one dared query her directly on the matter, however.
Red-haired and ruddy-faced Thomas of Beaumont had journeyed to Outremer to share in the riches and booty of a conquered land. He’d yet to win a fief of his own in battle, however, and must needs be content with managing lands belonging to others. A distant cousin of the king, Thomas counted himself lucky to have been given stewardship of Fortemur.
As steward, he had a hand in fiscal and judicial matters. With Jocelyn’s close watch, he kept a tally of all revenue-generating activities within the keep and its surrounding farms and orchards. He was also charged with ensuring appropriate levies were paid into the king’s coffers. As reimbursement for his services, he took a share of these levies to himself.
Jocelyn had made every effort to accommodate the man and his sharp-nosed wife. She’d assigned them the sunny bower she’d called her own before moving into the lord’s chamber. She made sure Sir Thomas accompanied her to the cellars when she had business in the counting room, where the keep’s gold and treasures were kept. Likewise when she unlocked the spice room to dole out precious peppercorns or cinnamon sticks to the cooks. He rode with her when she went to inspect the outlying farms and orchards, and dispensed in her name such justice as she decided appropriate.
Yet try as she would, she could not like the man. He was puffed up with his own consequence and quick to remind everyone within hearing of his kinship to the king. Worse yet, his wife was petty and cruel to those who served her. Jocelyn had spoken to the woman about that more than once. On the last occasion, she’d threatened to take a whip to her if she struck or kicked or pinched another maid so hard as to raise bruises. Thus Jocelyn had to stifle a groan when she saw Sir Thomas and his shrew of a wife already seated at the high table.
Given his exalted position, the steward sat on her left. As castellan, Sir Hugh held place of honor on her right. Sir Guy, husband to Lady Constance, sat next to Hugh. Jocelyn nodded to her loyal vassals and managed a polite smile for the king’s cousin.
“Good morrow, Sir Thomas.”
“And you, lady.”
The steward’s wife inclined her head as was due Jocelyn’s rank but forebore to speak as a small army of pages scurried to serve them. Since the first meal of the day was the lightest, they offered only thick slices of bread, cold pigeon breast, sardines drenched in olive oil, stewed boar left over from the night before, pears, candied cherries and a plate of the dates so plentiful here in the East.
Sir Thomas waited to scoop up a sardine with a bread crust and pop both in his mouth before fixing his gaze on Jocelyn. “What’s this I hear? Did you indeed ride to El-Arish yesterday to purchase a slave?”
“I did.”
“God’s tooth, lady! El-Arish is on the other side of a border much disputed between my cousin and the Fatamids.”
“I’m well aware of that, Sir Thomas.”
“Yet you went to the slave market?”
Jocelyn downed a swallow of ale before replying. The story she’d devised to explain her excursion into enemy territory came easily to her lips.
“I heard there was a new batch o
f Frankish prisoners to go on the block. I felt it my Christian duty to ransom one or more of them if I could.”
The king’s cousin could hardly argue with that. So many pilgrims and other travelers had been taken by pirates of late that not even the royal treasurer could ransom them all.
“But the one you purchased,” he said with a frown. “Did I mishear, or does he indeed lie in your bed?”
“You heard aright,” Jocelyn replied coolly. “When we returned from El-Arish yesterday afternoon, I bade Sir Hugh see the poor wretch was fed and bathed, then asked that he be escorted to my chamber. I wanted to know from whence he came and why he’d journeyed to the Holy Land.”
“Yes, but—”
She ignored the interruption. “I know you’ll be most pleased when I tell you he has vowed to join the Knights Templar. Of all the great warriors who defend your cousin’s kingdom, they are the most fierce.”
“That is true enough,” Sir Thomas was forced to concede.
It was, they both knew, an uneasy alliance at best. Since their humble beginnings as self-appointed protectors of pilgrims, the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon had grown as rich and powerful as the kings of Jerusalem themselves.
Nor did it help that rumors skittered and swirled concerning their founder’s insistence that they be allotted quarters abutting the one remaining wall of Solomon’s second temple. More than one rumor whispered the Templars had broken through the walls to search the warren of underground tunnels. More still whispered that they’d found the treasures hidden there centuries before, along with that most sacred of all relics, the long-lost Ark of the Covenant.
Jocelyn didn’t believe that for a second. No one, least of all the head of a religious order dedicated to serving Christ, would deny the world such a sacred relic. Still, one had to wonder how they’d come so far from their original designation as poor fellow knights. Poor they were most definitely not!
Sir Thomas’s persistent and most annoying drone pulled her from her thoughts. “But why is this would-be Templar in your bed?”
Jocelyn laid down her jeweled eating knife and gave him her haughtiest, lady-of-the-manner stare. “He was ill used by the pirates who took him. So ill used that he collapsed at my feet, raging with fever. Lady Constance prepared healing unguents and helped me tend him throughout this long night.”
Lips pursed, the steward speared a date and bit into it. Juice spurted from the ripe fruit onto his reddish beard. Unmindful of the dribble, he chewed thoughtfully for a moment.
“The man must be noble born if he’s to join the Templars. Did he give you his name?”
“He did. Simon de Rhys.”
“Son of Gervase de Rhys?”
“He didn’t name his sire.”
“Yes, he did.” Sir Hugh leaned forward and looked around her. “He said this Gervase de Rhys is indeed his sire. Do you know him?”
“I know of him.” The steward’s lip curled. “If half the tales told of the man are true, he would trade his honor for the price of a goat.” He pointed his eating knife at Jocelyn. “Have a care, lady. Rotten fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
The warning made her chest squeeze so tight she couldn’t breathe. Heaven help her! Had she misread de Rhys’s character when she’d assessed him on the auction block? Would he ignore his vow to keep silent and brag to any who would listen about bedding the lady of Fortemur? Mayhap try to make some claim on her or her estate?
As quickly as the panic leaped from her chest to grab her by the throat, she thrust it back down again. Simon de Rhys had shown his true stripes last night. She might have been an untried virgin when he’d entered her chamber, but she was no fool. She knew well he could have used her far more roughly than he had.
True, he’d demeaned her by insisting she remove her robes and his. Also true, he’d looked her up and down in a manner that even now sent heat into her cheeks. Yet his touch had been… Had been…
Tantalizing. Exciting. Inflaming. Especially when he’d stroked her where no other ever had.
Without the least warning, Jocelyn’s womb clenched. So hard and tight that her hand fisted around her eating knife. Shocked to her core by the pulsing sensation, she shoved back her chair and rose.
“I must let Lady Constance come down and break her fast. I’ll be in my chamber, tending to de Rhys, should you need me.”
Simon was sure he dreamed. Those quiet voices. Those soft hands and cool, soothing cloths on his neck and aching back. They couldn’t belong to the horror that had been his life since pirates had stormed aboard the ship transporting him to Outremer.
He shifted, rubbing a bristly cheek against linen smelling faintly of musk and lavender. The scent stirred something buried deep in his mind. He had a vague memory of skin imbued with this same costly musk. Warm, silken skin that heated under his hands.
An answering heat rose in him. Hot. Searing. Far closer to pain than pleasure. The voices faded. Darkness claimed him.
“You must drink.”
Dragged from the enveloping mists, Simon tried to shut out the nagging voice. It wouldn’t be stilled.
“Do not scowl so at me.”
A firm hand gripped his neck and tilted his head. Something pressed against his lips.
“Drink.”
Irritated, he opened his mouth and near gagged when a noxious brew slid down his throat. When he tried to spit it out, a hand clapped over his lips.
“Drink it, I say!”
He got it down and pried up gritty eyelids to find he was lying on his side, face-to-face with a woman seated on a low stool. She had stern gray eyes and a face that showed lines of age beneath her elegant wimple.
“Who…?”
Lord! Had that hoarse croak come from him? He dragged his tongue over dry, cracked lips and tried again.
“Who are you?”
“I am Constance, wife to Sir Guy.”
That told him nothing.
Where in the name of all the saints was he? Who was this woman, and this Sir Guy she spoke of?
“Swallow the rest of this draught and I will fetch Lady Jocelyn. She wished to know the moment you came to your senses.”
Jocelyn. The name pierced Simon’s confused haze. His mind formed an instant vision of pink-tipped breasts and soft, creamy skin. His body stirred in response.
Luckily, the woman seated mere inches from him didn’t note his involuntary stiffening. She poured the rest of the foul-tasting brew down his throat, set aside the drinking horn, gathered her skirts and rose.
“I’ll send for Lady Jocelyn.”
“Wait! First tell me…” He scraped his furry tongue across his lips again. “Tell me how long I’ve slept.”
“You’ve been abed for nigh onto two days and two nights.”
When she departed, Simon rolled over. Or tried to. The effort seemed to tear strips of skin from his back. When the waves of pain subsided, he moved more cautiously, inch by slow inch, until he lay on his back.
Frowning, he stared up at the heavy bed curtains hung from a frame above his head. Of a sudden he could remember them rattling on their iron links as a certain stiff-backed lady tugged them open. Remember, too, the curve of her waist and buttocks below the fall of her hair.
So she wasn’t a dream. Lady Jocelyn. Mistress of Fortemur. He’d really bedded her. Not just bedded, he remembered suddenly, but pierced her maiden’s shield.
A fierce satisfaction thrust through his whirling thoughts. He’d bedded only one other virgin. He’d been a callow youth of ten or eleven at the time, completely bewitched by a buxom drover’s daughter some years older. They’d fumbled in the straw and he’d almost spilled himself before she’d given an impatient huff and straddled his hips.
As best he could recall, the drover’s daughter had been a rough and blowzy wench. The woman he’d bedded last night was anything but. As his mind cleared, the details flooded back: of a lady haughty and stubborn and proud. Trim flanks girded by a l
inen band. Rounded buttocks that had near driven him mad with desire.
To know he was the first man Lady Jocelyn had wrapped her legs around tugged at something deep and fierce and primal in Simon. He might not have a groat to call his own, but she was his. She would be, henceforth, in a way she could never be for another man.
Not that Simon could claim her. Aside from the fact that her station was far above his, he’d sworn never to reveal what had transpired between them last night. More to the point, his thrice-damned father had sentenced him to a life that forbade any further concourse with all women, including the Lady of Fortemur.
The tread of footsteps in the hall wrenched him from his grim thoughts. Teeth gritted, Simon turned his head to the door as two people swept in. His first thought was that the Lady Jocelyn was both more and less beauteous than he remembered. Linen banded her forehead and chin and confined her hair. Her mouth was set, her chin angled to a stubborn and most unbecoming tilt. Yet her gown’s square-cut bodice emphasized the swell of her breasts, and the belt clasped loosely around her hips drew his gaze to their graceful curve.
But it was her eyes that caught and held his. The warning in their brown depths was unmistakable. He was to say naught, reveal naught, of what had passed between them.
The unspoken warning rubbed his feathers exactly the wrong way. He’d given his word. Did the woman think he wouldn’t keep to it? The thought that she might hold him in as little esteem as the rest of the world held his father made Simon’s jaw lock.
“So you are awake at last.”
“As you see,” he got out in a voice that rustled like dry corn husks.
His gaze went from her to the richly attired lord who’d entered with her. Red-bearded and broad of shoulder, the man regarded Simon with a supercilious air.
“I am Sir Thomas of Beaumont,” he announced. “Cousin to King Baldwin and steward of Fortemur until Lady Jocelyn is given in marriage.”
Ah! That explained the fierce warning in the lady’s eyes. This man was her keeper. He would not be best pleased to know the king’s ward had devalued her bride price by rutting with a lowly knight.
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