The Rose and the Shield

by Sara Bennett

Arno was still watching her, and she wondered uncomfortably whether he was able to read her mind. If he could he showed no sign, simply nodding and murmuring in reply to her request, “Aye, lady, I will.”

  “Thank you, Sir Arno.” Her voice sounded husky and unsteady. To her dismay, Rose realized she felt sorry for him, and it was more than likely he had seen the pity in her eyes. How an earth was this to be mended?

  “Lord Fitzmorton will want to see justice done.”

  It was Miles de Vessey’s clipped tones that had interrupted her confused thoughts. Slowly, Rose turned back to him, and found that he was watching her closely, his gray eyes without emotion. Was he merely stating a fact or, as sounded far more likely, issuing a thinly veiled threat? This man was more dangerous than Arno could ever be. Best she keep her wits about her and not be distracted by other matters.

  “We all want to see justice done,” she replied gently, and tried to ignore the fact she was so disheveled, her hair loose all about her like a serf’s, that it must be difficult to believe she was a lady at all. She lifted her chin another notch.

  “Sir Arno tells me you have captured the man who murdered poor Gilbert?”

  Poor Gilbert! She hoped her face did not betray her thoughts. “It is not yet proven.”

  “He has confessed,” Arno cut in swiftly, evidently keen to impart the good news. His sideways glance to Rose told her that he was also keen to repay her for her treatment of him.

  “Lord Fitzmorton will want to oversee the punishment himself,” Miles announced in a commanding voice. “I will take the prisoner with me.”

  “No!” Rose heard her own fear, and hoped they would think it anger. She waited a moment to regain some measure of control over herself before she continued. “No, Sir Miles. This is my manor, and I will oversee any punishments meted out to my people. Reassure Lord Fitzmorton that justice under Norman law will be done.”

  “As you say, lady,” Miles murmured with another bow, but he didn’t appear to be pleased. Rose very much feared she had not seen or heard the last of Miles de Vessey.

  She turned away, urging her mare back through the village, in the direction of the keep. She felt weary and sad and a little frightened, but she did not allow her back to slump or her head to bow. They—Arno and Miles de Vessey and his men—would be onto her like crows on carrion if she showed the slightest weakness.

  Since Edric had died, she had fought hard to maintain her rightful position—and all the myriad difficulties that went with it—and she had fought to hold on to her power just now, when Miles and Arno would have stripped it from her as easily as a rabbit’s skin. Aye, she had won this battle, but the victory was not so sweet—it was her right to preside over her manor court; just now Rose wondered if such a right were really worth fighting over. She was to sit in judgment on a good man like Harold the miller, and punish him for protecting what was his from someone who had meant him harm.

  And there were still so many questions!

  Why had the Norman, Gilbert, been in such a place at such a time? Had Harold mistaken the matter after all; had Gilbert been there to help? But Harold was no fool, and Millisent would not lie about such a thing. Mayhap the Norman had come upon the merefolk attacking the village and thought in the melee to take something that was not his? An opportunity gone very wrong.

  Miles de Vessey or Arno could bully her all they liked, but Rose knew she could not judge Harold until she had the whole tale.

  Gunnar was watching her profile as they rode. He had been watching her for some time, but she was oblivious to him, too caught up in her own thoughts. He was a man used to reading what went on in his opponents’ minds, and he had no difficulty seeing the anxiety in the pallor of her skin, or the tension in the vertical lines between her brows.

  He had done as she asked of him. He had sat behind her, waiting, listening as she fought for, and held, her ground against the likes of Miles and d’Alan. Refusing to let them bully her, answering their bluster with cool authority, and receiving their agreement as if it were her due.

  She was an admirable woman, the sort of woman any warrior would be proud to have at his side. ’Twas unfortunate Gunnar was here to take her land from her and catch her out in treason.

  If there is any treason.

  The voice in his head did not surprise him. Gunnar knew he had been doubting that she was a traitor since the first moment he saw her. As for Arno, aye, he was the kind of man to excuse himself any sort of evil, and then to be quick to blame others for his own weakness. But this woman…no, she was loved by her people and she loved them. Why would she give them up to Fitzmorton, knowing what would happen to them? She could not even bear to give up the wretched Harold!

  He noticed that the lines between her brows had grown more pronounced—he wanted to smooth them away with his finger…or his tongue. Her hair, so thick and glossy dark, was long enough to curl against the saddle as she rode, covering her back and hips in a shining cloak. It looked heavy. He wanted to lift it off her neck with his hands, blow softly against the sweet flesh at her nape, press his lips to the tender places there.

  Gunnar did not need to look down to know he was near to fully aroused, just from watching her, thinking about her, imagining what he would do to her if he had the chance. And the chance was coming. There was a heat between them that could not be doused by other than a passionate mating. She must know that as well as he.

  “Lady Rose.”

  She started as if she had forgotten he was there. Slowly, reluctantly, she turned her head. Gunnar waited until their eyes had locked. Instantly she was aware of him—a flush rose under her skin, her breasts lifted and fell more quickly, her lips parted. Desire, need…she felt it, too. Gunnar wondered what she would do…say, if he lifted her from her mare and lay down with her in the sweet summer grass. Would she protest? Or would she welcome the diversion, the chance to soothe the ache in her body? Would she open her arms and her legs, and take them both to Valhalla?

  Maybe she could read his thoughts in his gaze, for she said, her voice low and husky, “There is no need for you to be here, Captain. Go back to Sir Arno and the others. I will ride on alone.”

  “You are paying me for protection and I will give it.”

  She waved a hand dismissively at his calm reply, as if she didn’t care one way or another.

  “You do not trust me, lady?”

  Her gaze sharpened, she licked her lips. He watched the movement, could not help it. He wanted her to lick his lips. In a moment he would be beyond control—there was a fine sheen of sweat on his skin beneath his chain mail, and it wasn’t because of the warmth of the sun.

  The lady seemed to have been considering her words, for now she spoke in a blunt manner that signified absolute honesty. “Aye, Captain, I trust you. I think I must. I think I have no choice.”

  He searched her eyes. He had drawn his own answers from the morning’s events, and added them to the various things he had seen and heard since he arrived at Somerford. There was a tale of deceit and treachery to be told there, and Gunnar was almost ready to tell it. Maybe Rose had found answers of her own, but were they the same as his? It was time, Gunnar decided, to find out.

  “Sir Arno knows Fitzmorton,” he said carefully. “He has had dealings with him. He knew Miles de Vessey just now—that he hadn’t even bothered to ask his name was a careless mistake, but Miles is always arrogant.”

  Rose turned her face away, her hair falling over her cheek and shielding her from his gaze.

  “Fitzmorton’s man, Gilbert, was in the village the night of the attack,” Gunnar continued. “I think it is Fitzmorton who is behind the attacks, not the merefolk. It has been made to look like it was the merefolk, but no one has ever seen them. Your villagers are already so full of suspicion that they just assumed. Sir Arno and Fitzmorton are in league. They thought to frighten you so much that you would be easily persuaded to hand over Somerford Manor to Arno, and then Arno would allow Fitzmorton to step in. He covets Lord Ra
dulf’s Crevitch estates, and if he had Somerford, he would have an advantage when it came to making war on Radulf.”

  “You are stabbing in the dark,” she said weakly, and pushed her hair irritably back from her face. She looked flushed, angry, but her eyes slid nervously from his. “You don’t know whether any of this is truth, Captain. You are spinning a tale.”

  Gunnar ignored her protests, she would naturally be angry and resentful to discover she had been duped. “When your husband died, you were expected to rely more heavily upon your knight—to give up your power to Arno, lady. Instead you held on to it. All this time he has waited and you have remained strong, and now he has given up trying to persuade you with words. Now he has begun to take action.”

  She was watching him like a rabbit watched a wolf, as if she expected him to draw his sword and strike her. He understood. He had just torn down her safe little world and left her bewildered and bereft. She must be feeling as if he were her destroyer, not Arno.

  “Arno wouldn’t hurt me,” she insisted, her voice soft and breathless, her dark eyes wide. “I know he wouldn’t hurt me.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “Why? Because he lusts after you? Have you given him what he wants, lady?”

  Angry color flared in her pale cheeks, fire burned in her eyes. “You forget yourself, Captain,” she said.

  Jubilation swelled inside him. She and Arno were not lovers; they never had been. She was an innocent when it came to need, to desire, to the hot ache that drew men and women together. The widow of an old man, she had much to learn, and Gunnar exulted that he alone would teach her.

  But now he smiled without any trace of humor, his feelings hidden. “If you have denied him in the bedchamber, too, then he will have grown to hate you. The black and bitter hatred men ache with when they want a woman who does not want them. Has he asked to wed you?”

  She glared back at him, but unlike Arno or Miles he was unmoved. Abruptly Rose lost the will to fight him. Was he right? She was heartsick at the thought of it. He had been there for such a short time and already he was turning her safe, comfortable world upside down.

  But Arno was Edric’s trusted friend!

  “Lady, does he want to wed you?”

  She couldn’t meet his eyes. “He may have done. He has been…strange. I think, just now in the village, before you came, he meant to do so. That was why he was so angry when you interrupted him. I fear he thinks you…he believes you…I…”

  She did not want to finish the words, but after all it was not necessary. He understood, she realized, casting him a quick glance. He was grinning at her in a way that set her heart bumping about in her chest like a landed fish. How was it possible for a man to be so mesmerizingly handsome? Aye, his mouth was curved up at the corners, his blue eyes gleamed, but it was just a smile. Jesu, just a smile! Was she as weak and foolish as her mother, to allow herself to be so affected by a man’s smile?

  “Please yourself, Captain,” Rose said petulantly, tossing her head, disguising her reaction as best she could. “Come with me or stay here, but I am returning to Somerford Keep.” And she turned her horse and galloped off, as if she were intent on outrunning him. Did she hope he’d stay or follow? Rose didn’t know, but she needed the sanctuary of her keep and the mindless familiarity of the tasks that awaited her.

  Gunnar grinned and kicked his gray horse into pursuit, being sure to remain just behind her. Now was not the time for pressure or argument. She was suffering, and she was afraid. She had no one to trust but him, and he was a stranger, a mercenary who did as he was paid. He could not blame her for being suspicious. So he rode behind her all the way to the keep, watching her straight back and the sway of her hips beneath all that dark hair, and pretending not to mind what her innocence of treason would mean to him.

  He would lose the chance to have Somerford Manor.

  Gunnar looked about him, at the countryside he had begun to consider his own. The golden harvest was ripening swiftly now, almost bursting from the fields, and the soil was well cherished and rich. This was Lady Rose’s doing, he knew that now. She was one of those rare women who understood the earth. Who was willing to be still and silent long enough to hear its soft murmur. She grasped the importance of allowing her people enough time to tend their own crops and beasts, instead of working them to death in the service of her own wealth and glory. And they loved her for it.

  She even worked alongside them, when it was necessary.

  He pictured her, dark hair bound up on her head, her hem kilted about her smooth legs, bending her straight back as she tilled the soil. A smile tugged at his stern mouth, but he held it back. If he was master here, she would not need to do the work of a peasant. He would do it for her, gladly.

  The amusement died, and now he had no urge to smile. Aye, he would be willing to work like a beast in the fields for her, if she would take him to her bed for a single night.

  May all his father’s pagan gods help him.

  Alfred stood in the alcove near the fireplace. He knew he should be elsewhere—there was work to be done—but he could not seem to pull himself away from her. Millisent. Her red-brown hair was plaited and hung in a long rope over her shoulder, while her too-large gown of homespun was girdled in bulky folds about her small waist. She looked younger, alone and woebegone, as she sat on one of the stools, a length of cloth in her hand. Supposedly she was mending a rent in the castle bed linen, but in fact she did nothing but sit and stare. At nothing.

  An old woman sat beside her, crooning to a spotted piglet in a willow basket, but the girl took no notice of her. She was too deep in her own thoughts.

  Alfred wondered if it were possible to fall in love in a single instant. A single breath. For that was all it had taken. The swing of a sword, the blink of an eye. He had seen the girl, hurt and afraid, by the burned cottage, and suddenly the urge to comfort had overwhelmed him—the need to help another, which he had thought vanished from his heart. For too long he had felt sorry for himself—there had been the losing of his family, and then the ruin of his face, bad enough now with its puckered scar, but before…Children had run screaming from him, and grown men had held up their hands to shield their eyes.

  And now here was someone who needed him, who had turned to him without a second thought. He had felt his own pain melt like frost in the sun.

  There was more to it than that, of course. The burnished color of her hair in the firelight, the soft feel of her skin against his hand, the soothing murmur of her voice, her courage in the face of such adversity. All these things combined to make his heart sing whenever he saw her, and for a moment he would forget what he looked like. He was able to pretend he was just the same as everyone else.

  Alfred stood in the alcove by the fireplace and watched Millisent, knowing she was presently unaware of him, too caught up in her own travails to recognize his feelings for her. Or to want them. But he was ready; the next time she wanted him he would be there. And as long as she needed his strength he would give it. Soon, he knew, she would blink and wake up, and see him as he really was.

  Alfred did not expect forever; he was grateful for just one more day.

  Rose tried to close her eyes, but the darkness was not soothing to her. The stillness of the solar was not a balm. Instead of gentle, rocking sleep, she saw again Millisent’s face, when she had told the young girl what Miles de Vessey had said. Pain had etched lines about a mouth still soft and young, and Millisent had cried out in her agony.

  “Oh please, please, do not punish my father! He meant only to save me! You cannot punish him for that?”

  Rose had felt the tears in her eyes. “If ’tis so, Millisent, he must plead mercy. I will listen. The law will not punish an innocent man…”

  “The Norman law?” the girl had retorted, forgetting herself in her despair. “My father has killed a Norman; how can any Norman justice be fair?”

  Rose tossed and turned in her bed, the girl’s desperate voice ringing in her head. Millisent had been
right; what could Rose reply that was not a platitude or a lie? Harold had killed a Norman, and Lord Fitzmorton would not believe—did not care—that Gilbert had been involved in something reprehensible. He believed the murderer must be punished, or else chaos would reign in the land.

  Mayhap it amused him to cause Rose as much trouble as he could. For old time’s sake.

  She felt so alone! And now she could not even trust Arno, because she had begun to wonder whether he was in league with Lord Fitzmorton—unthinkable, and yet the seed of doubt that Gunnar had planted was growing. If she told Arno she had no intention of ordering Harold to be hanged, what would he do? Tell Fitzmorton’s man, Miles de Vessey? And then Miles would come to Somerford and enforce Fitzmorton’s kind of justice. She dared not give them cause to do that. Rose knew she must now tread very carefully indeed.

  Distraught as she was, Millisent must have seen in her lady’s eyes that Rose was as helpless as Millisent herself when it came to the question of Harold’s punishment. The girl had turned and run sobbing from the hall. Rose had felt so wretched, she had even contemplated turning to Brother Mark for advice. But one glance into his cold eyes, and she had thought better of it. Brother Mark would tell her she must listen to the advice of the men about her—Arno in particular—to bow to their will. Men, he would tell her, were rational creatures, whereas women were irrational and emotional beings and required a steady male hand.

  Even Constance was not available to listen to her fears, and inform her, “I told you ’twas so,” in a gloating voice. Constance was too busy with the villagers, and had nodded off to sleep over her meal in the great hall. Rose had put aside her own urgent need to talk, and had ordered the old woman to bed.

  The night felt airless, so still. Heavy cloud covered the stars, trapping warmth close to the earth, bringing the humid promise of rain. Her edginess increased. Much had happened today, most of it bad. And yet…she remembered the look in Gunnar Olafson’s eyes with a tightening low in her belly. He wanted her. She could not mistake such a thing, surely? Or was it a trick he played on all women, making them think he desired them? How could she trust him, believe him?