“You have to believe it too,” he said softly, transfixing her with the sharpness of his gaze.
His words clearly confused her and mayhap she would have coaxed the meaning out of him had not Agnes breezed cheerfully back.
“Yolonya says this will be better than wine, sir.”
“The stink is diabolical,” he growled, pushing the cup the girl was proffering back towards her. “What is it? Infusion of toad-skin?”
“It will dull the pain, sir.”
Wrinkling his nose, he took a gulp and nearly spewed it out. “Heaven forgive you, Agnes. It is abominable.” But he downed it.
“Yolonya also says ’twould be of benefit, my lady, if Sir Gervase could rest where we can keep an eye on him, and keep the wound exposed at least an hour,” whispered Agnes, as if the medicine had rendered him deaf.
“Then you had better lie down here, sir.” Johanna, not waiting for an answer, began to spread clean towels across the pillow.
Geraint dragged off one boot, wincing at the effort, and Agnes knelt and removed the other. He lay down first on his undamaged side, trying to ease his body into greater comfort, but his arm ached to the elbow, the flesh around the abscess was throbbing and he felt tired beyond belief. Soft fingers helped him turn and rearrange his arm. It was bliss to surrender to their ministrations. He closed his eyes and the women’s voices became a murmur like lapping water as they spread the blue velvet again and returned to their cutting out.
THE SERENITY OF the sunlit bedchamber mocked Johanna as she sat in the casement seat an hour later, a half-sewn seam neglected on her lap. She envied Agnes who was happily humming as she worked. One day the girl would have a hearth and a husband while she . . . It was hard to staunch the tears, to confront yet again her damaged soul and admit her loss. Watching the stranger’s breast rise and fall beneath the coverlet and listening to his peaceful breathing, she knew this intimacy might have been her destiny had God decided differently. Now ugly self-pity clawed at her for attention. Two husbands, but no future save the cloister and a lonely bed. No children. It would be so! She would never let another man do to her what she had suffered nightly in Fulk’s bed. The thrusting, the undignified invasion of her body’s orifice. Not for her, never, never again!
“Johanna, is Agnes—” Coming from her bedchamber which adjoined this room above the hall, Lady Constance breezed in unbidden like a windchange and halted, taking in Gervase sprawled fast asleep upon her daughter’s bed.
“Hush, he needs the sleep,” Johanna admonished.
Her mother raised an eyebrow at the domesticity of the scene. “I expected you to follow my advice, Johanna, but not quite so thoroughly.”
She ignored the sarcasm. “I am exceedingly angry with you,
Maman. Why did you not tell me he was fleeing from Boroughbridge?”
Unabashed at the accusation, her mother waved a hand dismissively. “We can talk later. Rouse him, the proctor has arrived. Come with me, Agnes, I need your help.” She sailed down the staircase which led to the pantry. Agnes shrugged and followed, leaving Johanna unanswered and fuming.
“She probably thinks I was swything you,” murmured a sleepy male voice as the door closed behind them. Geraint lifted his head and yawned. “Your pardon, my lady, I had no intention of dozing off.”
“But that was exactly what you needed,” replied Johanna briskly. “Here is a clean shirt for you. How is the wound? No more throbbing?”
He stretched slowly like a great cat, swung his stockinged feet to the floor and cautiously flexed his shoulder. “Should I be getting a throbbing?”
She was getting to recognise the teasing in his voice. “No, definitely not,” she answered as innocently as she could, busying herself with tidying up the blue scraps from the floor and deliberately leaving him to put the shirt on by himself.
“My thanks for your labours.” Standing up, he reached for his tunic.
“Oh, I have some skills,” she answered caustically.
“I never said you did not. I intend to try out most of them.” At least that was what it sounded like he said as he pulled the garment over his head.
“What in the name of Heaven do you mean by that?” She helped him tug it into position. An unfriendly dog would have empathised with her risen hackles.
He had the grace to emerge looking sheepish. “I mean that if you can heal me then perhaps I can . . .” He caught up his belt and located its ends. “. . . heal you, and when I leave Conisthorpe some more worthy man may come along . . .”
And to think she had felt in harmony with him, even let him use her pillow. “Do you think there is nothing better in the world than sharing a man’s bed?” Her voice sank to a dangerous growl. “Get out of my bedchamber, sir!”
Having buckled up, he raised his head and studied her.
“Do you think me blind, Johanna?” he retaliated. “I am beginning to realise the entirety of what that devil Fulk has done to you.”
Oh, now she caught his meaning. This arrogant, conceited man had glimpsed her earlier repugnance and thought he could exorcise her demons, did he?
“I tended you, did I not?”
“Oh yes, my lady, pity on a poor wounded creature. But what about the rest of me? It is evident my wholesome flesh makes you feel like puking.”
Brushing off the meandering blue threads clinging to her surcote, she did not need to look at him. “I regret that you noticed. Please understand. It . . . it works both ways. Do you want to kiss my bruised cheek?” She gazed up and caught the faint revulsion in the tightening of his mouth. “No, I see you do not. It is the same thing.”
“Your face will mend.”
“And my repugnance will not, will it?” The ensuing silence was raw with pain on her side. She walked to the window, away from the blue eyes mirroring her image.
“Heal yourself, my lady. If you do not, you will have let Fulk crush you like a flowerbud beneath his heel.”
Her fingers twisted frantically. “What happens here after you leave Conisthorpe is not your business, sir. All you are paid to do is perjure yourself and then return to whatever safety you may find.”
She heard the rustle of his clothing as he stepped up behind her and sensed the hesitation. His words when he spoke were too close for her peace. “So you despise me,” he snarled and she felt his angry breath upon her temple. “I see, I am a mercenary whore, paid to perform but not permitted to give an opinion.”
Turning, she flung herself past him to the door and wrenched it open.
“Sir,” she said coldly, waiting for him to leave, not daring to glance up as he came towards her and stopped within kissing distance. Her heart was beating frantically.
His fingers came gently round her face as if it were a rose. “Perhaps if we both close our eyes.”
She squeezed her eyelids shut, not to obey him but so she could not look. She felt the soft touch of his lips on her bruised cheek then his mouth came down on hers and she fought instinctively against the iron arms that held her.
“Ah well, it was worth the try.”
As she opened her eyes, his face filled her entire vision. If he felt her heart pounding, the blue gaze did not taunt her for her vulnerability. It was cruel but needful for Johanna to deliberately draw the back of her hand across her mouth.
Geraint let her go. Humiliated at his failure, ashamed at forcing her, he nevertheless felt the tug of desire and the tantalisation of the hunt. He would not apologise and he would try not to care.
“I will await you downstairs,” he told her. “Wear the scarlet.”
Fifteen
“IPROMISE TO BEHAVE, Johanna,” Geraint murmured later as they coincided in punctuality at the threshold of the hall.
“Ha!”
“Be advised, lady, if you hurl the nearest tankard at me, I will have nothing respectable left to wear.”
The lady’s hand settled upon his wrist like a reluctant hawk on the glove. His attempt at humour seemed to mollify her somewhat albei
t she was chewing her lower lip, a telltale sign of inner nerves at meeting the proctor. He had only himself to blame for compounding the wretched wench’s problems. But, after all, one did not throw away a good shoe if the outer casing was still sturdy; if merely the lining was torn, you tried mending it.
And one half of her face was very kissable.
She had draped her veil generously at the sides of her face and the laps of her hair were tugged forward. Although the puffiness around her eye had cleared, only her mirror or a brave man would have told her she had acquired a very noticeable graze from the last day’s adventure.
“You look as sweet as a cherry,” he was able to tell her sincerely from her undamaged side, his gaze sweeping admiringly down the red kirtle. And edible, he added to himself, his gaze dwelling unashamedly on the rise of her breasts.
“A fruit with a stone at its heart,” she replied charmingly. “Are we going in or are you going to stand here lying all morning?”
“Let us do it this way for the proctor, darling dear.” Dropping his wrist away from hers, he caught her fingers instead and led her playfully into the hall.
The brown-robed stranger conversing with Lady Constance and Father Gilbert as they warmed themselves by the dais hearth had a large girth which betokened well.
Geraint’s hand drew Johanna close and he bent his head and whispered, “You can judge a proctor’s eloquence by his waistline,” so that she would still be smiling when they reached the man of law.
Stephen de Norwood might have taken holy orders, but the man’s demeanour was more hearty than holy. Friar Tuck would have recognised a kindred soul.
“Sir Gervase.” He shook Geraint’s hand vigorously and respectfully bobbed his head. “And the beauteous hub of this matter, madam, your humble servant.” Johanna’s skeptical reaction to the man’s impolitic attempt to fascinate was predictable. She swiftly withdrew her hand; given encouragement, the fellow would have carried it to his lips.
“You managed to reach here safely, I see, Brother Stephen,” Geraint commented politely. “I understand that your colleagues were less fortunate.”
“Ah yes, these things happen, sir, but I am certain they will only be delayed by a few days, and I assure you that the curse of the weather may be a blessing in disguise. We may all prepare ourselves more fully, and, immodest though it may seem of me to suggest it, I shall be able to offer you,”—here the proctor nodded to him rather than the ladies—“valuable advice that may stand you in good stead considering the new circumstances.”
“New?” Johanna shook the word as though it were a bone. “What do you mean, master proctor?”
“Perhaps not new, but as you are not experienced in these matters, my lady, you may not have anticipated that . . .” He waved his hands in the air. “Forgive me, I ramble. To put it in a nutshell, madam, your hus—Sir Fulk has also filed a petition.” He turned to Gervase, “You and Sir Fulk are now what is termed competitiores, you are each bringing a petition against this charming lady.”
Geraint noticed the flicker of distaste Johanna’s lips betrayed. Even expected, the delivery of the news must chill her. It was to be a tournament of words with her as the prize, assuming, of course, that her real husband would play an honourable game.
“I should do the same thing in his shoes,” Geraint observed, bestowing an ostentatiously generous smile on his beloved.
“I have just informed Brother Stephen of the unfortunate circumstances that have caused this unhappy business,” Lady Constance said briskly. She must have caught the fraction of alarm in Johanna’s eyes and unease in his own, for she added swiftly: “You can both give him your side of the matter, of course, but I have explained that in essence it is all due to your covert marriage and my lord’s later refusal to listen to Johanna’s protests.” She turned her attention to the proctor. “My husband sadly cannot provide an account of his part in this. I tell you in confidence that God has smitten him.”
The proctor nodded, clicking his tongue sympathetically. “Most unfortunate for Lord Alan, although of course the Lord God may have incapacitated him for an entirely different reason.” Here, he glanced cautiously at Father Gilbert, adding, “However, it seems that the Almighty has intervened to bring about Sir Gervase’s safe return.” He received a thoughtful nod from the chaplain and, emboldened, swivelled round to direct his attention to Geraint. “Dominus litis, Sir Gervase. You shall be well served. Some proctors, like myself, are bachelors of canon law.”
“Perhaps you would like to explain your position, Brother Stephen,” Geraint suggested.
“For the noble ladies’ better understanding, of course. As you are no doubt aware, Sir Gervase, a proctor is an official of the archdeacon’s court—the consistory court. It is our task to introduce the facts to the court and organise the evidence. We argue to the judge the strength of our party’s legal position. An advocate, on the other hand, is paid to present legal points and questions. A proctor, however, may also act as an advocate in cases of a complicated and . . .” here he coughed, “delicate nature.
“I am available to advise you, sir, but, naturally, I must request payment for my extra services if I am to act as your advocate as well. My fees are most reasonable, I assure you.”
Geraint received a faint signal of acceptance from Lady Constance, but having never seen the nobility enthusiastic to spend their money, he played his role to the letter. “I will give due thought to your suggestion,” he said as if only mildly interested.
“Indeed, Sir Gervase, to show my honesty and value, I will give you a morsel of advice for free this very instant.”
Schooling his expression to indifference, Geraint waited.
Enthused, the proctor delivered. “The court may request you to provide the name of your parish priest.” Was this tidbit calculated to impress?
“Ah.” Father Gilbert, at least, nodded.
Geraint glanced at the chaplain. “Why?”
The proctor beamed and elaborated. “So that the court may write to your priest to verify who you are, whether you are a bachelor or widower and eligible to be married to this lady, and so he may avow your sincerity as a virtuous knight.”
Johanna’s mother swayed. Fortunately Stephen de Norwood was beside her and did not notice.
“Of course,” agreed Geraint suavely as if he had known it all along. The proctor waited respectfully for more of a response and if he was disappointed that his potential client was neither astonished nor grateful, he did not show it.
Johanna, perhaps irritated by her knight’s coolness, was busy evaluating the advice. “Why should that procedure be necessary, Brother Stephen? Even a village idiot can perceive that Sir Gervase is a knight and gently bred.” She ignored the covert smirk from her so-called husband.
The proctor obviously preferred to avoid any business dealings with women, but he was reasonably polite. “Lady Johanna, this verification should have been acquired by the priest who married you. I assume that because of the hasty nature of your troth plighting this was never done.” He bestowed a stern, myopic look upon her.
Johanna bit her lip and directed a reproachful glance at Geraint before she shook her head with less shame than was appropriate.
The proctor smugly continued. “Because Sir Gervase was not known in these parts, the priest who joined you—Father Benedict, did you say earlier, Lady Constance?—should have sent to Sir Gervase’s parish for confirmation that he was not a trickster out to cozen a young demoiselle into his bed.”
Distracted by the tiny twitch at the corners of his mouth, Johanna knew that Gervase was suppressing a grin. Caught out, he sent her a chastising glance and enthusiastically directed his attention to the proctor.
“Had Father Benedict behaved in a correct manner, he would have read the banns on three consecutive Sundays,” Stephen de Norwood was saying.
Frowning, Johanna interrupted hastily, looking to Father Gilbert. “I do not understand the importance of ‘banns.’ If Father Benedict cal
led them at our marriage, is that not sufficient?”
“The whole idea of the banns, my daughter, is for everyone in the vicinity to give thought to a forthcoming marriage,” the chaplain answered.
“Permit me to demonstrate, my lady.” Stephen held up the forefinger of each hand. “Supposing, let us say, that Joan de Mickleford,” he wriggled his left finger, “wishes to wed Thomas de Ilkley.” Here he waggled his right finger—its nail could have been cleaner, thought Johanna and tried to listen more carefully as the man continued. “The banns are called for the first time and, of a sudden, ancient Mary, who is the oldest surviving creature in the village of Mickleford, remembers that Joan’s grandsire once begat a child out of wedlock on a woman from Ilkley. Everyone else in the village now begins to remember bits and pieces. Together they work out that the woman from Ilkley was actually Thomas’s grandmother. The young couple, Joan and Thomas, are therefore in prohibited consanguinity. They would have to get a papal dispensation to marry. If they were to wed and have a babe, there would be good odds that their child might be cursed. Besides, supposing their marriage was not fully lawful, Thomas might decide to set Joan aside at some future day if his roving glance found a wealthier woman or one who pleased him better. Do you wish to add anything, Father?”
“It seems clear to me so far,” Father Gilbert answered. “I fear Father Benedict, God rest his soul, was not always as diligent as he should have been.”
Lady Constance’s foot tapped irritably. “But this procedure of writing to Sir Gervase’s parish will create all manner of problems. He spent the last few years in Gascony, for Heaven’s sake.”
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