“Shall we ride out and test the feathers on your bird, my lady?”
The gleam in his eyes belied the nonchalance in his voice. He’d done what few men could, and knew it. Jocelyn had to smile in response to his smug self-satisfaction.
“We shall, indeed.”
A stiff wind blew off the sea and coursed through the corridor between the inner and outer ramparts. The capricious gusts rustled the leaves of the fruit trees planted between the walls and tossed Jocelyn’s hair behind her linen headband. She paid the wind no mind. As her barb clattered over the drawbridge and through the outer gates, her attention alternated between the hooded falcon perched on her leather-clad wrist and the knight riding beside her.
She could not help but admire his seat. He sat easily in the saddle, using muscled thighs and firm hands to guide Avenger instead of spurs. The warhorse responded with a smooth, steady gait. He was as much a warrior as the man who rode him, Jocelyn knew. Her grandfather would be pleased, she thought ruefully—with the match between knight and destrier, mayhap, if not with the shameful bargain she and de Rhys had struck.
She shook aside the lowering thought and deliberately turned her mind instead to the matter at hand. Her destination this morning was the copse of stunted oak perched on a bluff high above the sea. Ordinarily a full hunt with hounds or birds would take her much farther afield. Today she wanted only to test the skills of the creature she’d spent so many hours training.
Some moments later she reined in atop the cliffs she’d climbed and clambered over since childhood. The wind was stronger here, but its bite was more than made up for by the achingly blue sky and lace-tipped waves far below.
“We’ll stop here,” she told de Rhys.
Nodding, he drew rein beside her. The others of their troop halted as well. Only then did Jocelyn remove the peregrine’s hood. She did so slowly, taking care not to startle it and risk losing a chunk of flesh to its sharp, curved beak. Her falconer had bred the bird from one of Fortemur’s most rapacious hunters. Once the chick had shed its downy fuzz and grown feathers, it had been removed from the clutch. Jocelyn had painstakingly fed it bits of raw meat by hand so it would become used to her touch, but she was not such a fool as to think it tamed.
For several weeks now, she and her falconer had by turns let it fly at the end of a long tether. Each time they whistled it back to their wrist, they rewarded it with a bit of meat. Several times the tethered peregrine had taken down pigeons released specifically to test its sharp claws and hunting instincts. Today it would shed its leash for the first time.
“That’s a fine bird,” de Rhys commented as she stroked its blue-gray feathers.
“Yes, it is.”
Not as large or as heavy as the gyrfalcons her grandfather had preferred for the hunt but far swifter. When the peregrine folded its wings and dived on prey, it became no more than a blur to the eye. Jocelyn didn’t doubt it would provide many a plump pigeon or juicy quail for the table.
Its sharp claws dug into the leather sleeve shielding her wrist and forearm. One handed, she wrapped her reins around the pommel and fumbled a pair of bells from the pouch at her waist. When she’d attached them to the falcon’s leg, she crooned to the bird.
“Are you ready to fly?” She sang to it with a soft, caressing voice. “Will you soar high and return to me?”
Watching, listening, Simon almost convinced himself she sang to him as well as to the bird. Much as he’d gentled the magnificent destrier he now rode, she gentled the skittish bird. And with each movement of her hand, Simon could almost swear he felt her fingers on his skin.
She hadn’t stroked him when they’d lain together. Their joining had been too swift and his back too raw to indulge in prolonged touching and tasting. Nor had he brought her to her peak before he’d spilled himself, he recalled ruefully. She’d come close, though. He’d bedded enough women to know that. Regret, sharp and lancing, speared into his belly as he watched her murmur to her bird. Had he another chance, he would take great pains to give her the pleasure she deserved.
But he would not have another chance. He forced himself to accept that stark fact as she released the falcon. It swooped up and around their heads, bells tinkling, as if unsure what to do with its unaccustomed freedom. Then it caught the wind and soared. Its circles gradually widened until it flew over the forest of scrub oak.
When Jocelyn shielded her eyes with a hand and watched it closely, Simon shifted his gaze from the speck of blue in the sky back to her. The breeze tossed the ends of her silky hair and flattened her gown against her breasts. Her lips pursed as she followed the bird, then let loose an excited yelp.
“He’s found prey!”
Some creature on the ground must have flushed a covey of spotted quail. Almost the instant they broke through the cover of the stunted oak, the peregrine folded its wings and shot downward like a bolt fired from a crossbow.
Hunter and prey collided in midair. Feathers were still flying when Lady Jocelyn spurred her mount. The barb leaped forward. Simon and her escort scrambled to follow.
Carrying its catch to the earth, the peregrine disappeared below the tree line. They followed the sound of its bells through the thick underbrush and found it tearing at the quail’s breast. Jocelyn whistled sharply. The falcon raised its head. Another piercing whistle had it slowly flapping its wings and returning to perch on her outstretched wrist.
Since Simon was closest to the fallen prey, he dismounted and cut a strip from the bloodied breast. He’d trained enough birds himself to know they must needs be rewarded for a kill. He passed the carcass to the falconer, who stuffed it in his pouch, and the tidbit to a delighted Lady Jocelyn.
“Shall we loose him again,” she asked when she’d fed the morsel to her bird, “or return to the keep? I would not have your cuts pain you.”
“Lady Constance’s potions worked miracles. I don’t so much as feel them.”
They both knew that for a lie, but in truth Simon’s wounds had healed more than he would have believed possible in so short a space of time. He could move now without fire eating at his back and mount with only a brief stab of pain.
“Send your bird aloft,” he told the lady.
He had no difficulty keeping up with her and the others. But when the hunt was done and she drew rein again, he was more than willing to accede to her suggestion they dismount and walk along the cliffs.
She passed the peregrine to her falconer to take back to the mews and sent her escort with them. When the sergeant of her guard protested that Sir Hugh would have his head if aught happened to her, she nodded to the keep looming farther along the cliffs.
“We’re within shouting distance of the walls.”
“But, lady…”
“Go! I would speak with Sir Simon of matters that concern only him and me.”
Wondering what she had to say to him, Simon dismounted and tethered Avenger to a bent cypress. He hurried over to help her dismount, but she slid from the saddle with lithe grace.
“Walk with me,” she commanded.
They meandered along cliffs carved by centuries of wind and waves. The sea crashed in and swept out of openings cut by its relentless battering. Seabirds nested in rookeries among the crannies.
Simon had never seen such brilliant waters or wild, foaming waves. “Outremer is like no other place I’ve traveled to,” he said with a touch of awe. “It has such barren deserts. Such rich, ripe orchards and turquoise waters.”
Lady Jocelyn gave him a quick, sideways glance. “If you can make the descent, I’ll show you something even more wondrous.”
He eyed the waves crashing against the craggy cliffs. “More wondrous than this?”
“Follow me.”
Before he could protest, she hitched up her skirts and started down an almost indiscernible track cut into the cliffs. His heart near jumped out of his throat when he saw how steep the way was.
“My lady! Have a care!”
“I’ve taken this path
a thousand times or more. Just watch where you tread.”
Chapter Six
Simon had faced formidable opponents in the jousts. He’d also battled more enemies in combat than he could count. Yet never could he remember feeling a cold sweat bathe his entire body the way it did when he started down the path cut into the cliffs.
It was narrow and treacherous and steep. Too narrow and treacherous for anything except mayhap a nimble mountain goat. More than once his foot dislodged loose rocks and sent them over the edge. He fully expected to follow them at the next step. He didn’t draw a full breath until he scuttled crabwise onto a somewhat wider ledge beside Lady Jocelyn.
His breath whooshed out again when he saw the merriment on her face. It was the first time she’d smiled at him, really smiled. The impact was like a mailed fist to his chest.
“There,” she said, her eyes alight. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Not for a sylph like you,” he replied with some feeling. “For someone who has feet the size of mine, it was a dance with the devil.”
Laughing, she swept an arm toward the opening behind them. “This, then, is akin to a dance with angels.”
He hooked a questioning eye, stooped to peer inside the opening and gave an involuntary exclamation.
“By the crown of thorns!”
He’d never seen the like. The shallow cave behind them glistened with what looked like a thousand points of light. They were caused by the sun, he saw, reflecting off salt crystals burnished to blinding purity by the sea.
“This is my own special place,” Jocelyn informed him. “I came here often as a child, whenever I could escape my nurse. When the tide is in,” she added as she ducked inside, “the cave is flooded. But now, with the tide out and the sun low enough to strike lights off the crystals it’s safe and dry.”
It was also a place of unimaginable beauty. Simon could only gape as he followed her into the cave. The glare lessened once they were past the opening, but the feeling the crystals evoked was still magical. He had to drag his stunned gaze away to face the Lady Jocelyn.
“I thank you for sharing your place with me.”
“You’re one of the few I’ve brought here. Most are afraid to risk the descent.”
“With good reason!”
He took another look around before bringing his gaze back to her. The blinding purity of the cave eased much of the strain between them and gave Simon the impetus to speak from the heart.
“I thank you, too, for granting me my freedom.”
She looked away. “It’s a fair exchange. Your freedom for mine.”
This was the first hint she’d given him as to the reason behind their coupling. Simon had formed his own opinion based on the gossipy Lady Ferret Face’s comment. He wanted confirmation so he knew how deep a quagmire he now stumbled through.
“Tell me, lady. What drove you to so desperate a deed?”
She shook her head. “I told you that first night. You need not concern yourself with the why or wherefore.”
“Tell me.”
She set her chin. “It’s better…safer…for you to remain in ignorance.”
“Safer?”
She couldn’t have offered him more insult had she slapped his face in front of the entire keep.
“Don’t let the chains I wore when first we met mislead you,” he retorted, stung. “I can hold my own against any man in battle.”
“In battle mayhap. But can you hold your own against a king’s anger?”
She hadn’t meant to answer so quickly. Or spill so much. He could see she wished her words back, but he wouldn’t let her take them.
“If what we did will inflame royal anger, it’s safer by far that you tell me the reason now. I swore I would not speak of what occurred between us and I will not. But I’ll be asked about my time at Fortemur. I don’t want to say something in ignorance that could endanger you.”
She stared at him for long moments, clearly torn.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
A sigh slipped through her lips. “It’s a common enough tale here in the East, de Rhys.”
“Simon.”
“What?”
“My name is Simon. I would hear it from your lips.”
“It’s a common tale in the East, Simon.” Shrugging, she seated herself on a low rock. “King Baldwin would seal an alliance by wedding me to the Emir of Damascus.”
“The emir?” Having suffered mightily at the hands of his captors, Simon could not believe the king would hand a ward in his keeping to a foreign pasha. “The king would give you to an infidel?”
“I would not be the first Frankish lady so given,” she replied with more than a touch of bitterness. “More to the point, the alliance would strengthen Baldwin’s southern borders against incursions by the Fatamids and allow him to turn his attention to the Turks in the north. That is worth more than coffers of gold or chests of costly myrrh in these troubled times.”
Simon stood silent for long moments. As a landless younger son he knew well the importance of an advantageous marriage. At one time, he’d hoped his strength of arm would win him the daughter of a minor baron.
His father’s vow had shattered those ambitions. The Church now demanded all he had to give. Yet everything in him rebelled at the idea of this vibrant, alluring female being given to one of the infidels he’d sworn to vanquish.
“If such matches are commonplace here in the East, why…?”
He tried to frame his question in a way that would not sound coarse or common. There was none.
“Why did you lay with me?”
Her expression hardened. She didn’t speak for several moments. When she did, it was obvious she chose her words with care.
“The emir is reputed to have most particular tastes.”
“How so? Tell me,” he insisted when she fell silent again.
“All right!” Goaded, she shoved back the strand of pale gold hair that had escaped its confines. “The emir prefers to take only untried virgins to his bed. Once he’s pierced their maiden’s shield, he confines them to his harem. From aught I’ve heard, they never leave it again. Or,” she added in a strained voice, “get called back to the nuptial chamber.”
God’s bones! No wonder she’d resorted to such desperate measures.
Simon had witnessed this woman’s strong spirit. Once when she’d crossed the wooden bridge he was sure would collapse under her. Again when she’d set her jaw, removed her robes and bared herself to him. He could no more see her withering away within the walls of a harem than she could herself.
Nor could he see the king acquiescing without question to the demise of his plans for this woman. Simon knew little about Baldwin, the third king by that name. Only the broadest details of his struggle to maintain his kingdom against near overwhelming odds. And those, he suspected shrewdly, had been much exaggerated to rally all Christendom in support of this Second Crusade. He did, however, understand how great heiresses such as the lady of Fortemur became pawns in this matter of strategic alliances.
“You know the king will not believe your claim that you are no longer virgin,” he told her gruffly. “He will demand proof.”
She swallowed and nodded in bleak acknowledgment.
“I know.”
Simon’s jaw went tight. He’d be damned to all the fires of hell before he would allow any woman to be subjected to such humiliation on his account.
“I will tell the king what happened between us.”
“No!” Her head jerked up. Her eyes went wide. “No, de Rhys. Simon. I don’t ask that of you. The king’s physicians can confirm that I am no longer a maid. You need not reveal your part in this.”
The idea that some foul-breathed physician would spread her innermost folds and slide his fingers into her moist, slick depths made Simon’s nostrils flare. He closed the distance between them and grasped her upper arms.
“Think you I am so cowardly?”
“No, I—”
“I will not let you take the king’s wrath on your shoulders alone, Lady Jocelyn.”
“You must! Else you will not live to join the ranks of the Knights Templar.”
His father’s vow rose up again and clashed head to head with the notions of chivalry, with which Simon had grown to manhood. Everything in him wanted to shield this woman from the fate awaiting her and from the inevitable consequences of her decision to take him to her bed.
The sheer recklessness of that decision tightened his grip on her arms. “This is madness, Jocelyn. You’re a ward of the king. You can’t hope to escape every husband he chooses for you.”
“I don’t! I wish only to escape this one! And…”
Her breath caught. Her head went back. She stared at him with wide eyes. Simon saw himself reflected in their golden-brown depths.
“And what?” he growled.
She swiped her tongue across her lower lip. Her breath rattled in, out, in again. “And to know some small pleasure before I was given to a husband to use me as he would.”
Some small pleasure.
That, in truth, was all Simon had given her. The shame of it burned a hole in his gut even as his gaze dropped from her lips to the long, clean lines of her throat and the proud breasts below.
Brutal honesty compelled him to meet her gaze once more. “I gave you that, lady. To my shame.”
She blinked, surprised and unsure whether to take affront. “To your shame?”
“There is more I could give you. Much more.”
“I…” Red tinted her cheeks. “I doubt it not.”
He hesitated, well aware he was close to committing another grievous sin. He had but to look in her eyes to decide he would do penance later.
“Do you trust me?”
A nervous laugh escaped her. “I took you into my bed, did I not?”
“Then let me pleasure you.”
The red in her cheeks flamed to a fiery hue. Anticipating a fierce objection, he laid a finger across her lips.
“You need do naught. Nor will you feel the pain you felt at your breaching. Instead, you will feel what a woman should when a man takes time and care with her.”
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