Captured by the Warrior

by Meriel Fuller

  ‘What does he want?’

  Mary slipped the silk kirtle over her lady’s head. ‘This is his home, my lady. He has come home.’

  ‘Aye, but he never comes home if he can help it. Why now?’

  Mary frowned. She was finding it difficult to read her lady’s moods these days.

  ‘He has a girl with him. Beautiful, she is.’

  ‘A girl? Curious. I thought he didn’t bother with woman after…well, after poor Katherine.’

  ‘Aye, my lady,’ Mary responded in hushed tones. ‘That was a terrible business.’

  ‘It was, wasn’t it? Lady Cecile smiled, then clapped her hands briskly. ‘What are you waiting for? Lace me up quickly, my girl. This could prove to be very interesting indeed.’

  Mary suddenly wished she had said nothing at all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The manor at Foxhayne sat in a wide, sparsely wooded valley surrounded by fertile pastureland, still verdant green despite the lateness of the year. Cattle grazed the lowland fields, tails swishing back and forth to dispense the flies, while sheep worked their way across the rough, upper pasture. A river cut through the flat bottom of the valley, crowded trees on the banks marking its snaking, glittering path. The manor itself was built of the local sandstone, a pleasing jumble of circular turrets and crenellated walls, bowing out with age. No soldiers strutting along the battlements, no moat or drawbridge. No sign of any defences whatsoever.

  Bastien reined in the destrier at the brow of the last hill, scanning the wide bowl of land that contained his home. The last time he had seen it had been above two winters ago, when he had left for France. He had believed then that he would never return to those walls, this land. So many memories! He remembered his mother’s ravaged face, her screams of revenge when she’d learned of Guillaume’s death, her triumphant look that he’d caught on her face at Katherine’s funeral. The sweet smell of Alice’s hair drifted upwards as she relaxed against him, and he closed his eyes, savouring the intensity of the moment. Maybe now was the time to stop running away, immersing himself in one battle after another; maybe it was time to confront those memories, and his mother.

  He noted Alice’s silence. ‘Not quite what you’re used to, I suppose,’ he murmured. ‘No royal guard, or succession of noble guests. No pomp or ceremony.’

  ‘You know I have no call for such things,’ she replied, her voice like a bell in the clear air. Aye, he did. He had never known a woman so unaffected by all the trappings that riches could bring. He knew her.

  Alice shifted in the saddle, the curve of her hip nudging against Bastien’s upper thigh. ‘What a beautiful place,’ she said. Dark green ivy clambered up the walls in places, softening the stone. Briar roses scrambled round the door, the last pink flowers clinging on until the autumn frosts would blacken them. A garden had been laid out to the left of the manor: paved walkways hedged with dark yew trees. ‘Not at all what I expected.’

  ‘What did you expect?’ He gritted his teeth against the tantalising touch of her hip.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replied teasingly. ‘Some sort of grim fortress teeming with soldiers, a deep moat, a portcullis.’

  ‘Something more suited to me, you mean.’ A muscle jumped in his jaw. ‘These soft touches have nothing to do with me. My mother’s had the run of the place for several years now, since I’ve been fighting in France. I only come here on brief occasions, to check up on things.’

  ‘Then why come back now, if you feel nothing for the place?’

  ‘Because it was the closest.’ He tried to fob her off with the easy answer, not willing to share his thoughts about confronting issues he had long since buried. In truth, he was questioning his own sanity in returning. The breeze washed over him, lifting the short strands of his hair, cool air against his scalp. He wanted to stay there for ever, his arms cradling Alice, feeling the gentle press of her body against his. Sheer, utter torture.

  ‘Will your mother be there?’ Alice’s voice shook him from his reverie.

  ‘Aye, she never goes anywhere now. She lost all contact with the outside world when Guillaume died. All she has now is a handful of servants, and Buchan, my bailiff, who manages the land for me.’

  ‘How sad.’

  ‘She brought it on herself, Alice.’ His tone was brittle, uncompromising.

  ‘It can’t have been easy for her, with no husband, losing a son like that, and another son away in battle.’

  He caught the sympathy in Alice’s tone. ‘I think you need to meet her, before you make any judgements,’ he replied carefully.

  ‘And if I’m to meet her, then I can’t go in looking like this!’ Alice exclaimed. ‘Look at my hair!’ She pushed one desperate hand into the tumbling mass, ‘And my dress!’

  He loved her the way she was, the glorious silken threads of hair spilling over her shoulders, clinging to the front, the sleeves of his velvet tunic, the flimsy silk of her kirtle shining between the ruined sides of her gown.

  ‘She’ll not notice, Alice.’

  ‘Even if she doesn’t, the servants will,’ she replied, throwing one leg frontways over the horse’s neck and slipping to the ground. ‘Haven’t you got anything to secure the back of this?’ She clutched the slipping front of her gown to her breast.

  Bastien sighed, dismounted, and began to rummage in one of the satchels tied to the rump of his horse. ‘I thought you gave no care to how you looked,’ he remarked, withdrawing a long coil of leather lace from the bag. ‘You never follow the fashion like the other ladies at court.’

  ‘Bastien…’ she grinned at him, her small teeth white against her fine, blushed skin ‘…there’s following fashion, and there’s being presentable. I’m not even close to being presentable! What’s your mother going to think if I meet her looking like this?’

  Like I’ve made wild, passionate love to you, he thought. The fact that Alice had spent most of the night in his arms was patently obvious. Her hair was mussed, her eyes danced with brilliant light, her lips were red, tender from his kisses.

  ‘You have a point,’ he replied crisply, his heart thudding with the memory of the night before. ‘Although I doubt she’d even care.’ He turned her about, concentrating on threading the fiddly lace through the rows of holes punched down each side of the gown.

  ‘Have you threaded every hole?’ Alice asked suspiciously, when, after a very short time, Bastien announced that he was finished.

  ‘I have,’ Bastien lied, eyeing the huge gaps in the lacing. Impatient to finish, unwilling to torture himself further with the warm feel of her flesh against his fingers, he had skipped a few holes. He wrenched at the tailing ends of the laces, so forcefully that he made her stagger backwards, and tied them in a double knot.

  Alice raked her fingers through her hair, endeavouring to comb it, and began to bundle it into a long, fat braid. Her arms ached; normally her maid would do this for her. ‘I’ve got no pins to secure it.’ Small white teeth chewed at her bottom lip in frustration. ‘Life would be so much easier with short hair.’ She glared enviously at Bastien’s short, ruffled strands.

  ‘But so much less beautiful to look at,’ he murmured. Briskly, he secured the curling end of the plait with another length of lace.

  ‘How do I look?’ Alice stood before him, elbows akimbo, the breeze billowing out her skirts behind her, a sweet smile on her face. Sweet Jesu! His body tensed treacherously in response to the bewitching sight of her. How in Heaven’s name was he going to get through this?

  Bastien swallowed hard. ‘You’ll do,’ he muttered.

  Cecile stood at the top of the stone steps leading to the wide, arched entrance door of Foxhayne, carefully positioned so she was shadowed from the glare of the noon sun, surprisingly hot for the time of year. She lifted one dainty hand to check her head-dress was positioned properly; the gold mesh rasped against her knuckles. She had dressed carefully: a silk velvet gown, lavishly embroidered, with a pleated bodice and a high neck framing her thin, peevish featu
res. The padded heart-shaped head-dress, the sides fashioned of stiff gold netting, successfully hid every scrap of hair. The sleeves of her gown fell in vast, voluminous gathers, deliberately designed to fall back and show off the tight, colourful sleeves of her kirtle. Cecile raised her chin, her narrowed cat-green eyes watching the approach of her younger son, the unknown girl. She was ready.

  Bastien walked slowly up the track from the gatehouse to the manor, leading his horse, the girl at his side. She was at least a head shorter than him, slender, her blonde, uncovered, hair shining in the sun like spun gold. Cecile watched closely, noticing Bastien deliberately curbed his long stride to match the shorter pace of the maid.

  Dispassionately, almost with no interest, she studied her younger son as he approached; big, brawny, the breeze shuffling his blond hair, so like her husband, both in looks and temperament. His brother, Guillaume, God rest his soul, had been more like her, delicate, sensitive. Grief ripped through her belly. Bastien had been a difficult baby, full of energy, desperate to talk, to walk, and once he could, there was no stopping him. He had been exhausting, such a shock after the calm, passive Guillaume, who would gurgle quietly from his cradle, his eyes wide, adoring. And now Bastien was home.

  Bastien halted at the base of the steps, lifting his chin up to the woman who had rejected him all those years before. He saw the same brittle, rigid features set in the bleached, parchment skin, the pursed-up mouth, the high forehead. ‘My Lady Cecile,’ he greeted her formally, nodding his head briefly.

  ‘Bastien,’ Cecile breathed. Her mouth sat in a grim line. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  A groom ran up from around the side of the manor, and led Bastien’s horse away, its hooves slipping on the cobbles as the boy led it to the stables.

  ‘This is the Lady Alice,’ Bastien explained. ‘She is in need of a place to stay.’

  ‘So you chose Foxhayne.’ Cecile’s voice was a clipped whine.

  ‘It was the closest.’

  ‘No maidservant?’ Cecile looked down at Alice with a disapproving stare.

  Alice stepped forwards, smiling, and curtsied. ‘Please forgive the way I look, my lady. Your son rescued me from a…a…situation.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘At this moment I have nothing more than the clothes I stand up in.’

  The girl was pretty, Cecile had to admit. And no doubt from noble stock, despite her uncovered hair, her unplucked eyebrows. She spoke like a noble. Her dishevelled clothes were fashioned from expensive cloth, obviously fitted by a proper seamstress. Whatever her son’s faults, he had good taste in women. Katherine had been a beauty, too.

  ‘Then we must see what we can do to accommodate you…my lady,’ Cecile responded with a hint of a smile towards Alice. She had to make some sort of effort if the maid were to trust her. The thick powder on her skin cracked into tiny wrinkles with the unaccustomed movement of her face.

  ‘Call me Alice, please.’

  Bastien frowned. This wasn’t how he’d expected the initial meeting with his mother to go. He’d anticipated tears, accusations and outright abuse from Cecile, but this? He couldn’t remember the last time his mother had smiled.

  ‘Well…Alice,’ Cecile continued, ‘I’m sure you must be hungry. Bastien, why don’t you take her to the great hall, and I’ll instruct the kitchens to bring you some food. You must excuse me, though.’ She noted the swift glance that passed between the two of them, the way the maid seemed tucked into Bastien’s side. Nothing was really obvious, but Cecile knew. Oh, there was something momentous going on between these two, something bigger than Bastien’s relationship with Katherine, she felt it in her bones, she saw it with her beady eyes. She needed time to think, to plan.

  Bastien led Alice through the doorway, and into a long passage, its floor set with large, uneven flagstones. After the warm sunshine on her back, the corridor was dark and cool. Alice blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the half-light. A wonderful smell of beeswax and lavender rose to her nostrils, filling the air with the scents of summer; no doubt the mixture was used to polish the wooden furniture in the manor. Tapestries and paintings crowded the walls, full of vibrant colour and intricate stitches.

  ‘What a lovely home,’ Alice exclaimed in delight. After all the horrors of the previous two days, it was a delight to be in a place so warm and welcoming. Especially when the man she loved was at her side.

  ‘Is it?’ he replied tonelessly. He was still trying to decipher his mother’s uncharacteristic behaviour; he didn’t trust her one bit. Pushing aside a thick curtain hung over a doorway, he entered the great hall, Alice following. At this time of day, the double-height space was deserted, apart from a single servant stacking the used plates together, clearing up from an earlier meal. Sunlight shafted down from the high windows, gilding spinning circles of dust.

  ‘It’s certainly very different from all the draughty castles that I’ve spent time in,’ Alice continued. ‘It’s warm and cosy.’

  ‘I suppose it is,’ Bastien said, sprawling into one of the chairs at the top table, watching Alice’s graceful movement as she tucked herself neatly into the chair beside him. ‘I’ve been away for so long.’

  ‘What a shame you couldn’t spend more time here.’

  His green eyes pierced her face. ‘Our country was at war with France, Alice. You don’t have much time to be idle.’

  ‘But when you did have time, did you come back here?’

  She rested her arms across the table, then leaned forwards; his eye traced the blue veins on the top of her small hand, hands that had held him, caressed him. He should have resented her questioning, but curiously he welcomed it. He wanted to tell her, to share the details of his life with her.

  ‘Nay.’ He broke off a hunk of bread. ‘I stayed with the Duke. I wasn’t welcome here.’

  ‘But your mother seems kind.’

  ‘Nay!’ He thumped one fist against the table, making the used crockery, the goblets and platters, jump. The servant, heading for the kitchens with a stack of empty plates, swivelled his head round, startled. Bastien leaned forwards, his face inches away from Alice’s. She smelled the sweet, heady scent of his breath. ‘Nay, Alice,’ he breathed, ‘she is not. Do not do what you always do, trying to see the good in everyone. Believe me when I tell you that you will not find it in her. You will never find it.’

  Trying to shake off the deep layers of slumber, Alice moved her head first one way, then the other on the pillow; the fine linen rustled beneath her hair. She felt as if she had slept for days. Stretching her arms and legs, she relished the cool, crisp material of the sheets against her limbs, the delicious, relaxed feel in her muscles. She opened her eyes carefully against the bright sunlight flooding in through the iron casement windows. Under the window, a carved oak coffer was pushed up against the wall, a large bowl and jug set upon it for washing. Colourful garments were slung across an elm chair on the other side of the room; the clothes were not her own, but no doubt intended for her. Sitting up abruptly, pushing her wayward hair from her face, her mind felt alert, energised by restorative sleep. She bounced out of bed, eager to see Bastien, a fleeting, tantalising hope burning along her veins. Was it possible that they could be together?

  The door clicked open, and a maidservant, about the same age as herself, bustled in, smiling widely at Alice who stood in the diaphanous nightgown beside the bed. ‘Oh, my lady, you’re awake! The mistress sent me to see if you needed any help. My name’s Mary.’

  Alice beamed at her. ‘Aye, Mary, I need to dress.’

  ‘I picked these clothes out for you, my lady.’ Mary turned to the pile of garments on the chair. A troubled frown wrinkled her brow. ‘I’m afraid your other gown has to be repaired.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Alice flushed, not wishing to share the details of how her gown came to be in such a state.

  ‘You look so much better than when you arrived, my lady. You were exhausted.’ Mary lifted up the chemise in readiness as Alice pulled the nightgown over her head.


  ‘Why, I didn’t see you,’ Alice said in surprise.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, my lady, but I took the liberty of peeking out of the window. We don’t receive many visitors at Foxhayne. It was a right treat to see a pretty maid like you standing on the doorstep, and the master too. We…’ Mary glanced behind her, as if she were expecting someone at the door ‘…haven’t seen him for a long time either.’

  ‘His relationship with his mother is not easy, I understand.’

  ‘Oh, nay, mistress, that’s the reason he never comes home; it sends her into such a state, for days at a time, so I think—’

  The door opened.

  Mary’s words froze on her lips, a violent flush flooding her broad features. Cecile came in, her smile pulling taut over her teeth. ‘Good morning, Alice.’ She nodded in her direction. The veil, hanging in perfect, starched pleats from the back of her headdress, hardly moved as her head bobbed forwards. ‘Mary, I can hear you chattering away down the corridor. Look at this poor girl, freezing, half-dressed, while you babble on.’ Her critical gaze alighted on Alice’s toes, curled up against the bare floorboards.

  ‘I’m…’ Alice was about to say she was all right, that she was as much to blame for encouraging Mary’s friendly talk, but Cecile’s continuing words ploughed through any further speech.

  ‘When you are dressed, you can visit me in the solar. I normally spend my days there, and it would be a pleasure to spend some time with you.’ Cecile placed one bony hand on Alice’s shoulder, the gemstones in her rings sparking coloured fire in the light.

  ‘Oh, but I…’ The urge to find Bastien, to talk to him, danced in her breast.

  ‘Is that a problem?’ The cold fingers clutched around her shoulder, digging in.