by Ann Lawrence
Emma, herself, was unwilling to test the new lord’s limits. She most wanted to remain in Gilles’ chamber, near to his things, wallowing in her sorrow, but Nicholas demanded her attendance at all meals and at chapel. They’d exchanged harsh words over his dictates.
Indeed, his wife was as hard as he. The instant Catherine had seen Emma spin, she’d demanded that Emma teach the village girls to spin a finer thread than what was now produced. Where Emma had been but another weaver in Gilles’ time, now she was his widow, and so should see to the improvement of the manor’s production.
She would go mad soon. Her back ached and her eyes were deeply shadowed. Sleep eluded her. The spinning lessons only kept her hands busy, not her mind.
She dreamt of him. In her dreams he was cold. How she wished they’d buried him beneath a field of flowers and not in the stone crypt beneath the chapel. At least then, she could imagine him with his face to the sun.
Abruptly, Emma rose from the table. She ignored Nicholas’ demands to know where she was off to and strode to the blue chamber that was now permanently hers. She donned her oldest clothing. When she reached the hall again, the occupants of the high table were deep in an intent discussion, heads together. It was child’s play to slip out unseen.
For a few moments, she wandered the baileys. She had no direction, but the crisp, cold air cleared her head. Overhead, a hawk wheeled in the gray sky, floating on cross breezes, dipping, turning, wheeling. For a moment she watched it, then it blurred as tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“Beatrice.” Mark Trevalin touched her shoulder.
She hastily swiped away the tears and turned. “You have mistaken me before—” She halted in mid-sentence. “What is it? Are you ill?” His skin looked gray and dry. An uneven stubble darkened his jaw. His eyes were threaded with red. She held his arm and examined his face. “Truly. You must see Lady Catherine. She is a healer far more talented than our leech.”
“Naught ails me.” He hastened off.
Emma watched him cross to the stables and disappear into their shadows. Nicholas would surely take him to task for his slovenly appearance when next he saw him. Gilles’ men were always well turned out, garbed finely, with well oiled-leathers and gleaming sword hilts.
The thought of Gilles sent her eyes to the ramparts again, but the hawk was gone.
She walked slowly through the village from one end to the other, exploring each alley and byway, revisiting where she had come from—and at such a cost.
She examined a pile of rubble from the fallen wall and remembered sitting in Gilles’ arms as he directed his men.
“I must stop this!” she chastised herself. With quick steps, she hastened from her memories. As she neared the well, a gathering of beggars burst into a relentless patter. With a shake of her head she spread her hands to indicate she had nothing for them. A ripple of laughter followed her. Gooseflesh broke out on her arms. A feeling that they stared at her as she walked along the path toward the castle made her glance quickly back, but they were haranguing another soul and seemed to have forgotten her.
* * * * *
Gilles watched her until she disappeared into the mist that now lifted and swirled about the drawbridge. He ached to call after her. It was all he could do to restrain himself.
He crouched by the well, leaning on his stick as if crippled. It concealed his height and served as a fine weapon. In but a few days, he no longer had need of Catherine’s pots and paints for disguise. Dirt from the mill pond bank served just as well.
How he missed his sword and daggers. But if he were to be given one choice, he would most want to have back his fine leather boots. His feet hurt—as did his back. Sleeping on cold ground, with naught but beggars as companions, made him most appreciate his feather mattress and warm hearth.
Warmth.
He desperately missed Emma’s warmth. As each morning dawned, he visited the mill pond to remind himself why he had taken on this task.
For William. For his bastard son. A son who’d loved indiscriminately, from Beatrice the miller’s daughter, to the alehouse keeper’s wife, although the alehouse keeper had not had the opportunity to be loitering near the mill, murdering his wife’s suitors. If fact, Gilles suspected the man had pocketed a goodly sum in exchange for her offered favors.
Who had killed William, then allowed Emma to take the blame? Each night, as he strived for sleep in an abandoned stable, he seethed with indignation and faced possible failure. Just as he’d failed to prove Emma innocent and legitimately gain her freedom, so he seemed to be failing at finding William’s murderer.
* * * * *
The next day, Emma again felt drawn to leave the keep. The same lone hawk spun overhead, soaring high to disappear and reappear over the castle keep.
Exhausted from hours of teaching children to spin and then sitting patiently through meals of conversation that avoided mention of what all of them held close to their hearts, she trudged the hill toward the village. Candles glowed in a few cottage windows, and mist hung in the air. Occasionally, she caught the sent of charred wood as she passed a pile of damp refuse, discarded after the devastation of the fire. The wind suddenly picked up, creeping beneath her skirts.
The hawk appeared, low in the sky. She found herself watching it and following to where it circled, alone, wings spread in majestic glory.
It settled on the roof of Lowry’s abandoned stable and turned its head, looking at her, she imagined. The thought lured her near.
She stepped inside the rickety structure a moment. A sound startled her, and she peered into the deep shadows. Three or four beggars crouched about a tiny fire. They turned their dispirited gazes toward her. She locked eyes with one. His eyes stared out at her from a grimy face, wrapped round about with rags. Unbidden, her heart raced and her breath came short. She whirled and fled.
Once in the bailey, she ran up the steps of the keep, burst into the hall, and sought May and Angelique. She snatched the child into her arms and held her close. The urgency and sudden flood of sensation that had driven her away from the stable set her heart to racing.
“Why am I afraid?” she whispered against Angelique’s neck. She took the child to her bedchamber and tucked her into the feather bed, then paced the chamber. She let down her braids and fussed at the knots. A few moments later, May quietly entered.
“May?”
“Aye, my lady?” May pulled her headcovering off and kicked off her clogs.
“I-I need air. You will be staying here again the night?” She tried to still the breathy quality from her words.
“Of course.” May took the ivory comb that had once belonged to Lady Margaret and ran it through her hair. “But ‘tis damp and bitter cold. Ye’ll freeze if ye go above to the walk.”
“I won’t be long.” Emma drew on her mantle and stuffed her hair into the hood.
Sarah met her in the hall. “Where are you off to?”
For reasons she could not name, Emma lied. “I am only going to get some air.” Sarah patted her shoulder and let her go.
Emma knew the gatekeeper would pull up the drawbridge when full night descended. But for now, with light but waning, a few horses and men were still coming across the bridge. Unable to stop herself, she slipped out as a cart lumbered in.
The mist crept in tendrils along the ground before her. The stable loomed as a ruin in the night, almost appearing to float above the earth with its wreath of mist. Hesitating, sidling up to the dark, yawning doorway, she glanced in. The beggars lay in a knot in the center of the main portion of the building, snoring and murmuring restlessly in their sleep.
A glance and she found the one she sought. Stepping over legs and arms, she knelt by the man’s side, willing him to wake. She crouched there like one in a trance, drawn to this place, drawn to see those eyes.
As she knelt at the beggar’s side, a wave of heat suffused her body. Her gaze took in his hand, resting on his breast. A scar, so like his scar, crossed the beg
gar’s fingers. The moon ran from behind a cloud and an errant beam of light gleamed on something at the beggar’s throat.
She reached out and touched it. Her fingers traced a delicate silver chain caught on the edges of the rags at his throat.
Her cry startled him awake. Their eyes locked.
He grasped her arm in an iron grip and hauled her to her feet. Silently, he dragged her to the black shadows of the rear of the stable.
They faced each other, unable to see clearly. The inky darkness was thick as velvet cloth. She wrested her arm from the man’s grip. With shaking hands she groped out and encountered the rough wool of a beggar’s clothing. Slowly, she spread her fingers on the cloth, then slid her fingers up.
Starved for contact with him, she traced the shape of his jaw, his cheeks, his brow. His harsh breath was all that broke the silence between them. He neither restrained her exploration, nor touched her back. She shoved back the rags that covered his head and scraped her fingers through the rough stubble of hair on his head. She knew the shape of him, knew him by heart, and had no need of light to confirm what her hands told her. Her breath shuddered in her chest.
“Gilles,” she whispered, her hand shaking as she raised it to touch his lips.
Then she was on him—pounding his chest in a terrible anger, fueled by her grief. She snatched at his clothes, baring his throat, tore at his arms. He held her off, his hands becoming entangled in her hair, unbound and flailing him like some silken whip. She punished him silently in her agony. Her disbelief drove her to near madness.
He wrapped her tightly in his arms. Slowly, his hands gentled her. He whispered inarticulate sounds against her ear. Her hair was silk, her warmth an unbearable reminder of their times together. His eyes burned.
Emma collapsed in his arms. Every inch of him was so real and so familiar. Each sweep of his hands tortured her, each touch of his warm breath at her ear drove her mad. She opened her mouth to cry out to him her anger and her joy.
He covered her mouth with his. This was the man she knew. ‘Twas no crippled beggar who kissed her. She knew his mouth, his taste.
Then she wanted all of him. She searched in his rags for him, touched his bare chest, flattened her hands on his pounding heart. Frightened that she was in some horrible nightmare and would wake to find him gone, she dug her nails into his skin.
Their mouths were hungry, never drawing apart to take air or speak. He held her breasts, learned the shape of her again, found her warmth beneath her skirts. He dragged her up, lifted her high in his arms.
Instinctively, desperate for what was to come, she wrapped her arms about his head and kissed him long and deep.
When he thrust up into her, she cried into his mouth, for ‘twas like dying and finding heaven to be joined to him again. Her back to the rough wooden stall, he cupped her buttocks and gave himself to her, each stroke violent in its search for the deepest part of her. When she went rigid in his arms, he held her tight and poured out his love for her.
Shaking, trembling with emotion, he lowered her and himself to their knees on the straw-strewn floor. Still joined, their lips were bruised and puffed. Emma didn’t want to end the kisses, for to do so would mean words must pass.
Emma feared the words. Her mind remained blank, her body on fire with her passion.
At last, Gilles drew back. He knew he must speak first. The moon broke the clouds again. Faint light reached them. Enough that he could see her eyes were tightly closed. “I did it for love, Emma.” He cupped her face, smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks. “Open your eyes.”
“Nay,” she whispered against his lips. “What if I do and you disappear?” Tears gathered and slipped from her eyes. He leaned forward and touched them with his lips. It opened the dam. Her mouth sought his and his hers.
This time the kisses were slow and careful. He let his hands float over her, touching gently. He drew her down beside him, her eyes still closed. Her hair slipped from her shoulder, and he shivered at the feel of it on his skin. Arching into her, he took her, pressing slowly, drawing out the moment.
But she would have nothing of slowness.
She urged him on, hands busy, mouth sealed to his. He couldn’t stifle his hoarse groans. Forgetting the sleepers nearby, he held her hips to him, tore his mouth away, and moaned his ecstasy.
Emma opened her eyes. He didn’t disappear. He was hot flesh within her. Her tremors started, and she needed to close her eyes again, gasping with the power of it, the power of her passion and his igniting and burning at the same moment, joined as ever they were—not as two people, but as one.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“How? Why?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“I—” Gilles leapt up and blocked the swing of a stick through the air, taking the force of it on his arm, crying out in pain. “Sweet Jesu,” he muttered. He snatched the stick with no trouble from the young mute beggar who’d come to his aid. Gilles realized their lovemaking must have sounded like a battle to his companions.
He took the boy by the arm and urged him to where the other two beggars cowered near the stable entrance. “I found a coin and bought a woman. ‘Tis all. I thank you for defending me, but I’ve not yet had my fill of her,” he whispered to them. With a sharp gesture that they should remain where they were, he took the stick and returned to the shadows and Emma.
She’d moved into the farthest corner. As he drew her into his embrace, he felt the hard shudder of fear running through her.
“You were not meant to know,” he said.
“Your voice,” she whispered, her hands going to his throat.
“It is as it is.” He grabbed her hand. “Roland was to keep an eye on you.”
“Roland! He knows? Who else? Catherine? Nicholas? Everyone save me?”
He silenced her with a fervent kiss. He attempted to turn her passionate anger, still her protests.
She broke away and held his obsidian eyes with her gaze. That is what had made him seem dead in the chapel, she thought. She could not see this flame of life in his eyes. “They all knew?” A sense of deep betrayal seeped into her being. “You agreed to this?”
Gilles clasped her stiff body to his. “We did it to protect you.”
“Why?” she gripped his arms, squeezing frantically. “I suffered as if they’d hanged me! I felt as if my very marrow was being torn from my bones! How could you scheme and hide it from me?”
“We thought you’d not permit it—”
“Permit it? I would have forbidden it!”
“Exactly. We feared you would muddle it all, confess yourself, or not appear distraught…” His words drifted to a halt.
“You planned that I should be distraught?” How cold she felt and yet inflamed, burning inside.
“We planned that I would live, that you would be free.” The harsh scrape of Gilles’ voice rasped in her ears. He folded her into his arms. “Trust that what we did, we did to spare your life.”
“What can I say?” she whispered against his chest. “To object will make me seem…heartless—ungrateful.” The sound of the slow thud of his heart was so joyful, so completely perfect, she burrowed her nose against his rags and sighed. Feeling began to return and the tightness of her body eased.
“I hunt William’s murderer,” he said.
She clutched his arms. “Hunt? Are you mad? You are supposed to be dead.”
“In that is my opportunity. Disguised as I am, I may investigate the circumstances—”
“I forbid it. You cannot conceal who you are. Someone will see you, they’ll drag you away, hang you again!” Her voice rose shrill and frightened.
“No one has recognized me but you.” He attempted to embrace her again. This time, she thrust herself away from his beguiling body, from the lure of peace she found in his arms.
“Nay, ‘tis madness!”
“I denied William in life, I cannot deny him in death.”
Emma felt the tears rise in her eyes. “You will be the death o
f me. I have flooded my pallet with tears. To find you alive…and mayhap lose you again to possible death…” She choked. “‘Tis a cruel jest.” She clasped her hands in supplication. “You cannot disguise who you are. Did I not find you? There is a—a quality to you no one else has. You will fail. I will lose you.”
“Stop!” He combed his fingers through her hair, clearing her face, that he might look into her superb, compelling eyes. “I cannot deny William in his death. Am I not responsible for what he became? I was his father, but I took little part in curbing what was reprehensible in his nature. I set myself apart from it. And so must do this.”
She knotted his rags in her fists. “You are not responsible for what he was. He was of his own making, nay, he was what we all made him, through indulgence, fawning adoration of his fair face. Do not hold yourself to blame. Come away with me. In avenging William, you will be denying me. And Angelique.”
He folded her tightly against him. “Nay, my love. I am denying you nothing. I wish to see your name cleared of suspicion. This I will do.”
“How dare you!” She tore herself away. “How dare you risk your life?”
“It is my life to do with what I will.”
“I ask you, beg you, as the woman who loves you. Change your mind. Come away with me. Forget William.”
Silence reigned for long moments, then he answered, his words barely above a whisper. “How I yearn to grant your wish. But my honor demands I avenge William.” He fisted his hand. “Someone stole his life from him, and in doing the deed carelessly considered yours forfeit, too! If you cannot understand my need to avenge William’s death, then understand my anger over your endangerment.”
He grasped her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “He spread himself like a whore, Emma—here in the village as much as above.” Then he took a deep breath and gentled his grip. His gravelly voice rasped harshly in the quiet of the stable. “It does seem, however, that he paid well for that privilege. Those who might object to his behavior are more mournful of the loss of his coin than of the loss of their daughters’ virtue, or outraged by their wives’ deceit.” He sought and found her hand in the dark. They linked fingers.