Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01]

by Falcons Fire

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Nay.” He wrapped his arm around her, urging her to lie beside him. “Just touch me... like that. Yes... yes...” His heart seemed to swell in his chest until he couldn’t bear it for another second. He clutched at her, his head back, groaning.

  “Yes. Oh!” Spasms of pleasure rocked him. He erupted in her hand, losing all conscious thought, all sense of time and space. Nothing existed but this moment, this blinding burst of sensation.

  Nothing existed but Martine and him.

  * * *

  Martine raced past the chapter house and refectory, around the cloister, and through the passageway to the outer courtyard. She held her skirts up off the snow with one hand and gripped her veil with the other, her hair fluttering wildly with every frigid gust of wind.

  It was almost first light. The brothers would be up soon to file into church for lauds, and she had promised to avoid direct contact with them. Since the infirmary was in their private area of the monastery—an area normally off limits to her—this meant she had to time her comings and goings in keeping with their observation of the holy offices.

  She saw not a soul as she entered the prior’s lodge and sprinted up the stairs, but in the doorway of the central hall she stopped short, biting back the oath that rose to her lips.

  Brother Matthew sat at the little table in the middle of the room, reading the Bible by candlelight. He looked up at her as she paused breathlessly in the doorway. His calmly assessing gaze took in the veil clutched in her fist, the loose hair that hung to her hips in a wind-whipped tangle, and, she had no doubt, the quick, scalding heat that stung her cheeks.

  He nodded. “Good morning, my lady.”

  She cleared her throat. “Good morning, Brother.”

  She turned and swiftly ducked into her chamber, then collapsed on her bed, struggling to catch her breath and speculating miserably on how much Brother Matthew had surmised from her disheveled appearance—and her all-too-telling blush.

  “Lady Martine,” he said from the other side of the curtain. “May I have a word with you?”

  Damn. She covered her face with her hands and sucked in a deep, pacifying breath, then sat up, swiftly tidying her hair and tunic. “Yes, Brother. Come in.”

  He crossed to her and crouched down next to the bed, taking her hands in his. For some reason—perhaps exhaustion, perhaps relief at his obvious intent to make this as easy on her as possible—her eyes began to burn with impending tears.

  “Please don’t misunderstand me, Martine,” he said gently. “I have the greatest respect for Thorne—and for you, for that matter. I view you both as friends—very good friends.”

  She nodded, her throat too constricted to speak.

  He drew a thoughtful breath. “And I’m not without compassion. Just because I renounced the pleasures of the flesh when I took my vows doesn’t mean I don’t understand them, even appreciate them. Such pleasures are a part of God’s plan, after all.”

  He gave her hands a firm squeeze and released them. “It’s not my place to pass judgment on your relations with Sir Thorne. But it is my place to govern what transpires in this monastery.”

  “None of the brothers saw me. I ran—”

  “My concern is not for the brothers. My concern is for you.”

  “M-me?”

  Furrows formed on his brow. “Your involvement with Thorne is far more dangerous for you than it is for him—you must realize that. You’re a married woman, Martine, regardless of what you may or may not feel in your heart. When the abbot agreed to allow you to live here, it was with the understanding that you would behave with the greatest circumspection.”

  She nodded again, his image wavering through the hot tears that welled in her eyes.

  “If he suspects, even for a moment, that you’ve violated that understanding, he’ll order me to expel you from St. Dunstan’s, and I’ll have no choice but to obey. You’ll be homeless then, and completely without protection. God knows how Bernard would choose to exploit such a situation.”

  She closed her eyes and tears trailed down her cheeks. He’s right, she thought forlornly. God, I wish he weren’t, but he is.

  “Martine, are you in love with Thorne?”

  Her eyes flew open. “I...” She shook her head. “No, I...” She choked back a helpless sob and dropped her gaze to her hands. “I don’t know.”

  He closed his hand over her chin and tilted her head up, forcing her to look into his dark, perceptive eyes. “Has he told you he loves you?”

  She shook her head. “He—he’s incapable of love.”

  Matthew smiled and raised an eyebrow. “No one’s incapable of love, my dear, even Thorne Falconer. But whatever his feelings may or may not be, he’s done you a disservice by encouraging you to... His gaze swept over her snarled hair.

  She felt absurdly obliged to leap to his defense. “‘Twas as much my fault as his.”

  “Well...”

  “It was. I’m weak. Just like my mother—” She broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. After a moment, Matthew awkwardly guided her head onto his shoulder and patted her back.

  “There, there,” he soothed. Martine reflected that he probably would have made a wonderful father. It was a pity monks couldn’t marry. When she stopped crying, he dried her tears with her discarded veil. “You’re not weak, you’re just human. And Thorne is... well, he’s accustomed to having his way with women. Some men are remarkably skilled at bending women to their will, and Thorne Falconer is one of those men.”

  “Oh, God,” she groaned. “I know. I’m so—”

  “Nay. You mustn’t judge yourself so harshly, my lady. But, for your own good, you also mustn’t continue these sorts of relations with Thorne. In truth, it’s dreadfully unfair of him to expect it of you. The risk to him is minimal, but to you—”

  “I know,” she said, her voice rusty from crying. She did know; Thorne had used her again, and again she had let him. “You’re right. ‘Twas foolish of me to have taken that risk. I won’t take it again.”

  “Frankly, my lady, I don’t intend to give you the chance.” He stood and added quietly, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to forbid you to return to the infirmary.”

  Martine rose as well, her hands clasped demurely in front of her, summoning all the poise she could muster. “But Thorne needs my medicines. Perhaps just once a day, just to—”

  “Nay, my lady. Brother Paul and Brother Luke will tend to him. You may send whatever medicines and instructions you wish, but you may not go back there.”

  She crossed her arms and stared at the floor. “Thorne will wonder why I don’t come,” she said, sounding a good deal more sullen than she would have liked.

  “I’ll explain things to him.”

  “He won’t like it.”

  “He’ll be furious,” Matthew said easily. “He’ll tell me the whole affair is none of my business and that he means you no harm. He doesn’t, of course. But the harm will come just the same—to you, not to him.” He shrugged. “In the end, he has no choice in the matter. He’s confined to his bed, is he not?”

  Martine nodded.

  Matthew closed a hand on her arm. “My dear, surely you see this is for the best.”

  “I do, but... it’s hard.”

  He nodded sagely. “You must try to be strong and do the right thing. You must put Thorne out of your mind. It’s what Rainulf would want.”

  That was true enough. Rainulf, as always, would counsel discretion. Not for the first time since he’d left, she found herself missing him painfully. Again she felt the sting of tears in her eyes, but she blinked them back. Thinking of Rainulf always made her feel like crying, but she’d cried enough for one morning.

  She raised her chin and looked Brother Matthew in the eye. “You’re a wise man, Brother. And I know you’re right about this. I do. I’ll try, I really will.”

  She filled her lungs with air and let it out slowly. “From now on, I’ll put Thorne Falconer out of
my mind.”

  * * *

  “Thorne has made excellent progress,” Brother Matthew told Martine as they walked to church. The first mass of the day was celebrated at prime, and it was this mass that Martine attended, along with the servants and lay brothers.

  “Yes, I understand he’s on his feet,” she said, her chilly words hanging in the air between them as vaporous clouds. In the three weeks since she’d been forbidden to visit Thorne, she’d received only sporadic and cursory reports on his condition. Although she’d endeavored, as promised, to exile the Saxon from her thoughts, to hear so little of his recovery after having worked so hard to heal him galled her greatly.

  Matthew nodded. “Yes, he’s up and about. Brother Paul tells me he’s never seen anyone so determined to walk again. Thorne insisted on getting out of bed long before they thought he should. At first all he did was fall down, but he kept at it. No one could believe he was willing to put up with that kind of pain.” He shook his head. “Thorne can be very stubborn about things.” He smiled. “Like you.”

  “Then he can walk now?”

  “Short distances, with a crutch. Paul says he can make it from one end of the infirmary to the other, and back again. Not bad, considering he almost lost that leg.”

  She nodded. “Thank you for telling me this, Brother.”

  He smiled and patted her arm. “Let’s not be late for mass.”

  She followed him into church, taking a seat between Felda and Cleva, Brother Matthew’s cook. Although Martine found mass tiresome, she liked this particular church very much. Its whitewashed walls and pillars reflected what little light came in through the narrow windows above the altar, and the sanctuary was decorated, from ceiling beams to floor, with brightly painted frescoes depicting events in the life of Saint Dunstan.

  “Good morning,” came a familiar voice from behind her—Thorne’s voice! She and her companions turned to find the Saxon edging awkwardly onto the bench behind them. He nodded toward the three women. “My lady. Felda... Cleva.”

  “Sir Thorne!” Felda exclaimed. “Is that you?”

  He didn’t look at all like himself, that was for certain. A dark beard concealed the lower half of his face, the features of which had been sharpened by weight loss. He wore a tunic of humble homespun, probably borrowed from one of the larger lay brothers. His right arm was immobilized in a sling, his left draped over the crutch on which he leaned. Speechless, Martine gaped down at his leg, still splinted and heavily bandaged. Leaning the crutch on the end of the bench, he sat slowly and carefully, his clenched jaw betraying the pain even this simple maneuver caused him.

  “You walked all the way here from the infirmary?” Martine said. “Through the snow? With that leg? You’re mad.”

  He smiled. Leaning toward her, he murmured, “If I’m mad, so be it. I understand some madmen are even happy.”

  The brothers began their chanting, and Martine turned back toward the altar, her face suffused with heat. His seemingly innocent words, meaningless to Felda and Cleva, were in fact words he had spoken to her on the mossy bank of River Blackburn, while he was buried deep inside her. They were clever, those words, conjuring up for her, as he surely knew they would, the heat and intimacy of their lovemaking, the ecstasy that they had known together.

  Put him out of your mind, she commanded herself. You must put him out of your mind... Why had he come here? she wondered. To see her? It was cruel, considering how hard it was for her to forget him, to forget the passion that sparked between them, the need...

  All through the interminable mass, Martine felt his hot blue eyes burning into her. Dear God, would she ever be free of this longing, this empty place inside her with the shape of Thorne Falconer?

  When the mass ended, Martine rose to leave with the others, but Thorne gripped her shoulder firmly and lowered her to her seat. He left his hand there until the church was empty save for the two of them and a young monk at the altar snuffing out candles. The Saxon removed his hand and they sat in silence, although the distance between them vibrated with unspoken words. Breathing in the pungent incense that lingered in the cold air, she watched the young monk, no more than a boy, move in and out of the hazy ribbons of sunlight that played over the altar. Without the press of surrounding bodies, she felt the full chill of the unheated winter air, even through her sable-lined winter cloak. Her gloves did little to keep her hands warm, so she tunneled them into the sleeves of her tunic.

  Turning toward Thorne, she said, “Don’t you attend mass in the chapel off the infirmary?”

  “Usually.” He said no more until the boy finished his duties and left, and then he leaned toward her. “But I’d wanted to attend it here, so I’ve been working on being able to walk.” He sighed heavily. “I had to see you. I haven’t been able to think of anything else.”

  She turned her back to him again, struggling to maintain her distance, emotionally, from this man who wielded such irresistibly seductive power over her, holding her captive to the yearning that seemed to simmer beneath the surface of his words.

  He reached out with one finger to touch the underside of her chin. A tingle of desire raced through her, and she sucked in her breath, awed at the capacity of one warm, caressing fingertip to heat the blood in her veins, to grab hold of her heart and squeeze it until it hurt to breathe.

  She wanted him, nay, needed him, with a craving so instantaneous and so powerful that she had to close her eyes and breathe deeply of the cold, spicy air to regain her composure... to remember why she mustn’t let him do this, mustn’t let him make her want him. That he still had the power to do so, after all that had transpired between them, shamed her deeply, despite Brother Matthew’s insistence that it shouldn’t.

  The struggle to resist him challenged her will. His touch, although surely calculated to serve his own purposes, felt so human, so warm, so redolent with promise. Were she to allow it, she had no doubt that, despite his injuries, he would take her hand and lead her to some dark and private corner and claim her body as fiercely and passionately as he had done at the riverbank. She could almost feel him inside her, and her body pulsed around the void within.

  “Will you be here tomorrow?” he asked, stroking her throat ever so lightly with the tips of his fingers.

  She bit her lip, arresting the words that leaped from her heart... Yes, I’ll be here. I want to be with you, to talk to you, to see the hunger in your eyes as they look at me, to feel your hands on me... Yes, I’ll be here.

  She was susceptible to his skillful persuasions, and he knew it; how could he fail to, after having seduced her twice? Now he thought he could make her desire him again anytime he wanted. How close that was to the truth, and how she hated her weakness.

  She might be weak, but she was also proud, and now she would use that pride to protect herself.

  She met his eyes. “I won’t be here, Thorne.”

  The light behind his eyes dimmed. He nodded, his mouth set.

  She said, “I’m glad you’re doing so well, but you’ve still got weeks—nay, months—of healing ahead of you. You should stay off your feet as much as possible. You certainly shouldn’t be walking here all the way from the infirmary.” This time he made no move to stop her when she stood and went to the aisle.

  Her back to him, she said, “You’re best off attending mass in the infirmary chapel.” As she turned and made her way back through the nave to the rear door, she thought she heard him say her name, but she kept walking and didn’t turn around.

  Chapter 19

  “Mayhap she’s incubating a demon,” suggested Father Simon, nodding toward Estrude’s grotesquely swollen belly as she lay writhing and moaning in her bed.

  Bernard glanced at the priest, thinking, The little worm is serious. Yet even Godfrey, nodding in slack-jawed amazement, seemed to believe it. Of course, he was pathetically gullible when he was drunk, which was all the time lately. With his mouth hanging open like that, and that dumbfounded stare of his, he looked for all the worl
d like the village idiot. All Bernard could think was, The day you start to drool, old man, is the day I smother you in your sleep.

  “Kill me,” Estrude begged for the hundredth time that day.

  Now, she’s the one who needs a pillow over the face, thought her husband, not because a quick death would be a merciful end to her suffering, but rather because the sight of her disgusted him beyond measure. In recent months her skin, jaundiced and covered with mysterious sores, had shrunken down over her bones, the flesh beneath seeming almost to dissolve in the process. Her face, with its wild, terrified eyes and lips stretched back over too-large teeth, was the face of a living corpse. Her arms and legs were like twigs, a curious contrast to the enormous belly that grew and grew and grew, like an overripe fruit waiting to burst.

  Would it indeed rupture if she waited too long to die? he wondered idly. And if so, what would come out? A horned minion of Satan, as Father Simon speculated? While his wife thrashed and clawed at her bedclothes, Bernard envisioned such a creature springing from her womb in an explosion of blood, and chuckled at the sheer primitive absurdity of it.

  No, it was no demon growing within his wife’s body, but neither was it a babe, of that he was fairly certain. Estrude’s belly, but six months into her confinement, had swelled to outlandish proportions. The midwife assured him that twin babes at full term could not have distended it so. No, it was some malady or other that had done this to her, and not a pregnancy, normal or demonic. The bitch really was barren, after all, worse luck.

  On the bright side, she’d be dead soon. He could start over with a new wife, someone young and healthy and capable of producing heirs. He’d keep this new one on a short leash and let her feel the sting of his belt right from the start, not give her time to grow insolent, as Estrude had. And it might serve him well to closet her in the bedchamber, where he’d always know where to find her. He’d have a door built, one that locked from the outside. This time he’d do it right.