by Anne Stuart
FOR A MOMENT she was caught, staring up at him, the soft caress in his voice strangely beguiling. The noise and crowd around them seemed to fade into the background, and his strange eyes drew her with promises of delight that she knew had to be false, but she believed anyway. She felt her face flush, her skin tingle and tighten, and she swayed toward him, just slightly.
And then he laughed. “Not now, my precious. Father Paulus is watching.”
It was as effective as a slap in the face, a dowsing with cold water as dampening as the one she had administered the night before. She blinked, stepping back from him, and her gown caught beneath her feet, tripping her.
He caught her before she fell, his arm strong and hard around her waist, his body far too close. Not the body of a fool, but the body of a man, strong and well-muscled, like no other man who had ever touched her.
“I could kiss you, my lady,” he said in a voice so low that no one else could hear him. “In full view of your mother and good Father Paulus and the entire household. Have you ever been kissed by a fool? Have you ever been well and truly kissed by anyone at all?”
The noise around them was a buzz of conversation and laugher, and yet no one seemed to notice she was trapped, pressed up tight against Nicholas’s body. No one would rescue her. “I don’t like kissing,” she said in a strangled voice.
His smile was a slow one, both bewitching and utterly annoying. “That answers my question. If you’d been well and truly kissed, you’d like it very much indeed. Shall I demonstrate?”
She would have said yes. For a brief, mad moment she believed that all kisses were not alike, and Master Nicholas knew the secret of strange, sweet kisses that enticed the body and enchanted the heart.
But someone bumped into them, breaking his hold, and the wild temptation passed.
“I never did thank you for coming to my aid last night. You were an angel of mercy.”
She looked at him doubtfully. “Including your unwanted bath?”
“Oh, I definitely needed something to cool me down. You have a very . . . heated effect on me.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Oh, I enjoy it. I find you very stimulating.”
“Don’t!” she said, feeling desperate.
“I can’t help how I react to you. Put your hand against my heart—you’ll feel how hard it’s beating.” He reached down for her hand, but she snatched it out of his reach.
She stared at him, scandalized. “Don’t you realize we’re in a hall full of people? That everyone can see us?”
“Then come away with me. We can find Saint Hugelina’s chapel and ask the holy martyr to bless our union.”
“Our union?” she echoed, aghast.
“Well, our physical union. I wasn’t thinking of marrying you.”
He was close enough to touch, close enough to shove. She pushed at him, but he remained immovable, too tall, too big. It was a wonder he was so agile—he moved like a cat, not a warrior. But then, he wasn›t a warrior.
“Leave me alone,” she whispered, pleading.
“Or you could ask the holy saint to free you from the onerous burden of a fool’s infatuation. They say if you wish upon a holy relic, your prayers will be granted.”
“Too bad there are no holy relics around when you need one,” she said.
“Ah, but there is. Just ask your mother. I expect she knows all about it.”
She wasn’t about to ask her mother anything, and he probably knew it. “What holy relic?”
“Rumor has it that the Blessed Chalice of the Martyred Saint Hugelina the Dragon is somewhere in Fortham Castle. I imagine the abbot is well aware of it—you could always ask him.”
“Why are you telling me this? Why should I care about a sacred relic?”
“I thought you wanted to be a holy sister, my lady. Sacred relics are a poor substitute for passion.”
“I’m not interested in passion. Nor in holy relics. Nor in anything else you have to say.”
She spun away from him, and this time he made no effort to stop her, merely watching her out of his enigmatic eyes.
It was easy enough to make her escape once she got free of Master Nicholas. The elegant fool was the only person in this household who seemed aware of her presence, though to be fair, she had to admit that her mother had other, more pressing matters on her mind. Julianna slipped out of the Great Hall into the corridor, breathing a sigh of relief at the blessed quiet after the loud, boisterous voices, when she barreled into a slight figure, almost knocking him over.
“I beg your pardon,” she said breathlessly, catching his velvet-covered arm. “I didn’t look where I was going.”
“No harm, my lady.”
He was a child—no, more than a child but not yet a man. He had long, silky black hair, a heart-shaped face of almost feminine beauty, and the bluest eyes she had ever seen. He smiled at her quite sweetly, and for a moment she thought of her own unborn children. Would they have been as beautiful as this young man? With such enchanting sweetness of expression?
“I’m Gilbert, fosterling to Lord Hugh,” he said in his young, soft voice. “I know who you are, of course. My lady Isabeau’s long-lost daughter. She has been longing for your return to her side.”
“Yes,” Julianna said in a noncommittal voice, for lack of anything else to say.
“It’s a hard thing to be sent away from one’s mother,” Gilbert continued. “Harder for a young girl, I suppose, though God knows I miss my own mother quite dearly.”
All thoughts of Isabeau faded. “Of course you do,” Julianna said warmly. “How old are you, child?”
“Thirteen,” he said in a shy voice. “I suppose it’s only natural to be homesick—up until last month I had never been away from my home in the north. I only trust my dear mother fares well without me. My father died when I was quite young, and I have no brothers to look after her. I can only pray the king will see to her well-being should she need assistance.”
“You’re too young to have to worry about such things, Gilbert,” Julianna said softly. “If you’d like, I’ll speak to my stepfather and see if you can’t go home for a year or so. Your training could certainly wait a few years . . .”
Gilbert shook his head sadly, the silken locks falling on his pale, smooth skin. “I’ve given my word, Lady Julianna. I can’t go back on it. But it’s good to know I’ll have a sister here to turn to when things trouble me or I get homesick.”
“You do indeed,” she said warmly. He was tall for such a young stripling, almost her height, but the soft innocence of his features proclaimed his youth. “I need some fresh air—things are too hot and noisy in the Great Hall, and no one seems particularly joyous about this marriage. Would you care to join me?”
“I’m promised to Lord Hugh,” Gilbert murmured. “But if I can, I’ll join you later.”
She smiled at him. With no children of her own, she spent her mother-love wherever she could, and Gilbert, even if he was a few years too old to be her child, would certainly benefit from a little maternal or sisterly solace. “Later, then, young Gilbert. I’m glad you’re here.”
He took her hand and kissed it with the slight awkwardness of untried youth. “Not as glad as I am, my lady.”
GILBERT de BLAITH watched Lady Julianna disappear down the stone walkway with his expression carefully veiled. In fact he was seventeen years old, not thirteen; he’d been orphaned since the age of nine, when he’d shoved his father down the long stone steps at Harcourt Grange, and the only beauty and sweetness in him resided in his face and form, not in his shadowed soul. He had been sent by his king to ensure that the chalice didn’t get misplaced on its way into his hands, and Gilbert expected that sooner or later he’d be using the knife he wielded with such cunning accuracy.
Julianna would be of little use to
him, but he was clever enough not to discount any possible advantage. He had no interest in bedding her—he preferred young, slightly stupid women who expected nothing. Julianna would be far too much trouble—he had no time or interest in coaxing. He viewed sex much as he viewed eating or relieving himself. A necessary bodily function he required at reasonable intervals, and nothing more.
It was going to be an interesting time. He had never gotten on well with the king’s fool, and Master Nicholas had an unfortunate tendency to get in the way of his more inspired plans. The priest was an annoyance as well—he seemed to be under the delusion that he had direct communication from God and all his pronouncements were to be greeted as Holy Writ. Gilbert was not a great believer in Holy Writ.
By the time he was fourteen years old, he’d killed seven men, including his own father. In the last three years he’d lost count of them. He did it for gain; he did it on orders from his sovereign, and he did it with a certain artistic grace that pleased his fastidious soul. And he cared not one whit.
He might enjoy killing the pale priest, though, he thought, leaning against the balustrade. He tended to be pragmatic about his chosen calling, and his opinion of mankind was low. If he were sent to dispatch someone, there was a fairly sure likelihood that that person deserved it ten times over. Or so Gilbert told himself on the rare occasions when he stopped to think about it at all.
He had no doubt that the abbot of Saint Hugelina would deserve anything Gilbert cared to mete out. And he just might commence with a thorough, honest confession covering the last ten years of his young life. The good abbot might simply expire from shock, and he wouldn’t have to use his knife at all.
“There you are, lad. The earl’s looking for you.” One of Lord Hugh’s grizzled knights came up to him, clapping him on the shoulder with such hearty strength that Gilbert staggered back, careful not to exaggerate. “He’ll be wanting to train hard now that his lady wife’s off limits to him. Poor old sod—women are the very devil, aren’t they?” Sir Geoffrey had no particular use for the female of his species, but Gilbert was supposed to be too young to notice.
He smiled sweetly. “So they tell me, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Good lad!” He pounded him on the shoulder again. “Go off and see if you can help take Lord Hugh’s mind off his John Thomas, at least for the time being. Heaven knows he’ll be in a rare killing mood until this thing’s resolved. Watch yourself, lad. It’d break Hugh’s heart if he accidentally cut your head off.”
“I doubt I’d enjoy it either.”
“Eh? What’s that? Oh, very good, very good,” Sir Geoffrey wandered off, chortling. “Wouldn’t enjoy it either . . . ha ha. Very good, that.”
Gilbert watched him go. There were times, he thought, when things were just too easy. And then he turned and joined his foul-tempered prey, his face a mask of sweet concern.
THE COURTYARD WAS deserted—even the servants were thronging the Great Hall in celebration of their master’s wedding. There was a marked chill in the air when Julianna stepped into the courtyard, and she wrapped her arms around her, wishing she’d gone back to the drafty room she had shared with her mother and brought a cloak with her. Despite the bright sunshine, the autumn chill had taken hold, and while part of her liked it, right now she was feeling the need for comfort, for warmth and safety and all things familiar, and she wasn’t quite sure why.
She was being manipulated by the devious fool, and despite the fact that she knew it, she couldn’t resist. Abandoned chapels and holy relics were just the sort of thing to fire her imagination, and she sorely needed some sort of distraction. Finding Saint Hugelina’s blessed chalice might not be as good as finding the holy grail, but it might do for an afternoon’s work.
The secret chapel was no secret at all—one of the serving women had pointed it out to her earlier that day. It was tucked in a corner of the courtyard, abandoned, the grass growing thick at the entryway, dusty and disused and seemingly forgotten in favor of the cathedral-like glory of the family chapel. She’d seen no sign of sacred relics during her nighttime visit, but since she’d spent almost the entire time facedown on the stone floor, she might not have noticed. Still and all, if a sacred relic were to be hidden, what better place than an abandoned chapel dedicated to the very saint who produced the relic?
She kept her head lowered, moving carefully along the paving stones, heading for the chapel with unerring haste.
The Lady Chapel stood adjacent to the kitchens and the offal heap, the disused entrance closed against the brisk autumn air. She pushed it open, stepping inside. It was small, silent, and warm, an odd fact since it was built of the same cold stones as the rest of Fortham Castle. Sun was shining in by the stained glass windows, illuminating them, flooding the tiny space with rainbowed warmth, and Julianna paused in the doorway, staring upward as the story of Saint Hugelina the Dragon unfolded in bits of colored glass.
The windows were masterful, a work of love in a tiny space that was seen by only a few. The first window detailed Hugelina’s early years, and the story came back to Julianna with all the extraneous detail she’d memorized as an act of piety. First there was Hugelina as a plump, wise young woman, a good daughter, a dutiful wife, an early widow. Like most good women, she’d taken the veil after her husband died, and within ten years she’d been on the verge of founding her own order, her natural talents, strengths, and intelligence given full rein in the convent.
But that had all changed with the greedy king who’d plucked Hugelina from her convent and forced her into marriage in order to take possession of her lands. And then, to add insult to injury, he’d had her poisoned when she’d proved too argumentative, cut her body into pieces, and fed her to a dragon.
The dragon window was particularly colorful, with bright red flames shooting from the scaly green creature’s mouth. Julianna didn’t believe in dragons, apart from those that might dwell in distant seas, but if England had ever had one, this would have been a worthy one.
But Hugelina’s story hadn’t ended there. Once the dragon had eaten her, she had miraculously jumped from his mouth, fully formed, and tamed him, sending him to scourge the land and her murderous husband for his sins.
The reanimated Hugelina had founded her order, the Holy Sisters of Saint Hugelina the Dragon, and then promptly died, turning into the dragon on her deathbed. Her sainthood had been declared quite swiftly, and any number of relics had been preserved, including scales from the dragon—which to Julianna had looked like bits of leather—a few splinters of bone, and most important, the Blessed Chalice—the plain cup her husband had used to poison her, which had turned to gold and become encrusted with jewels once Hugelina returned from the dragon’s belly.
It wasn’t that Julianna disbelieved the story. To do so would be blasphemous, and Julianna would never be unwise enough to risk heresy. To be sure, she’d never seen a dragon nor met anyone who had. She had never witnessed a miracle, and the brothers of the Order of Saint Hugelina the Dragon seemed no different than any other order. But apparently the Earl of Fortham traced his lineage back to that saintly lady, who’d been born on this land.
She’d heard rumors that the king disputed ownership of the Blessed Chalice, but from her distant knowledge of kings, she found they tended to dispute the ownership of anything worth owning.
The final window was her favorite. Saint Hugelina rose toward the sun, her round, clever face beaming with what obviously should have been holiness, though to Julianna it looked just a bit sly. The dragon stood behind her, its neck arched, and above all was the golden chalice, glistening in the diffused light.
Julianna pulled her gaze away, turning to survey the chapel. It was a small room, once reserved for the ladies of the household, and there had been none of those for quite a long time. Instinctively she looked up, over the unadorned altar, and saw it.
The chalice rested in a niche high overhead, ou
t of reach, the gold tarnished, the jewels covered in dust. It seemed almost forgotten, but Julianna wasn’t that naïve. No one would forget an object of such spiritual value.
She took one of the benches and dragged it across the floor, around behind the altar, pausing to genuflect before continuing on her quest. She set the bench against the wall beneath the chalice and climbed up on it, pulling her long skirts high around her legs as she reached up, up, her fingers almost grazing the gold stem . . .
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” It was Nicholas’s drawl, startling her so that she lost her balance, the bench tipping beneath her, and she went crashing to the hard stone floor in a great, ungainly heap. At his feet, which annoyed her even more.
He stood there, staring down at her, making no effort to assist her, which was a good thing. She would have slapped at his hands if he’d reached for her.
He was wearing mismatched hose, but somewhere along the way he’d discarded his bells. She found that particularly annoying—she hated the sound of them, but at least it kept him from creeping up on her.
“Do you enjoy terrifying people?” she said, scrambling to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster, ignoring the pain in her backside.
“I’m the least terrifying person in the world, my lady. And you’re the least likely to be terrified. Most of the time,” he added. “Confess, I startled you, but I didn’t really frighten you.”
She resisted the impulse to rub her hindquarters. “You were following me.”
He didn’t bother to deny it. “Don’t you realize that Hugelina’s chalice is out of reach for a reason?”
“No. It looks dusty and forgotten. I just wanted to clean it . . .”
He shook his head. “It isn’t forgotten, my lady. No one would dare forget it. But holy relics aren’t for the fainthearted.”
“I thought we’d established that I’m not faint-hearted,” she said tartly.
“But I’m not sure if you’re pure of heart either. The Blessed Chalice of Saint Hugelina the Dragon can be very dangerous to those who are unworthy. I wouldn’t go anywhere near it if I were you.”