His touch on her breasts was as rough and hungry as his kiss, filling her with a need that burned, burned. His thumb swept her nipples and she gasped, squirming beneath him, her hands skimming over his back, impatient with the clothes that kept her from touching him the way he was touching her. She tugged at them, but already his hand had left her breasts to move possessively over the sensitive skin of her belly and slide between her parted thighs. He touched her there, spreading her wide, and it was as if he had en-flamed every nerve of her body. She gasped into his mouth, her eyes flying wide in surprise. Then she felt his finger slip inside her, and she gasped again, her eyes squeezing shut, her body arching, her head falling back beneath a rush of intense, unbelievable sensation.
“God, Attica, I'm sorry, but I can't …” He tore his mouth from hers, his eyes dark with a fierce, raw need as he reared up, his hands fumbling beneath tunic and shirt to yank at the ties of his braies. She saw a shudder rip through him; then his hands were at her hips, gripping her, lifting her, his face hard, intent.
She wrapped her hands around the tight, bulging muscles of his arms, her throat dry as she sucked in air. She felt something incredibly smooth and unexpectedly hard push against the soft flesh between her thighs, and as much as she wanted this, she found she had to hold herself suddenly very still to keep from flinching away.
She saw a muscle bunch along his tight jaw. He leaned forward, his dark eyes riveted on hers. He caught her hands in his, stretched her arms over her head, pinned her beneath his weight. And pushed himself inside her.
She cried out. He caught her cry with his mouth, holding himself steady as she instinctively reared up against him. “Shhh,” he said, kissing her mouth, her cheeks, her sweat slicked forehead. She quivered beneath him, feeling him within her, feeling his hardness, his heat, stretching her, filling her. “It's only me,” he whispered, and to her surprise, she felt a shaky laugh ease out of her.
He kissed her again, his hair falling forward to brush her cheek. When her trembling began to ease, he moved, pulling partway out of her only to thrust in again, deeper, harder. And she caught her breath in wonder because what she felt was not pain so much as a strange, pleasurable kind of pressure. A pleasure that coiled and built with each thrust and drag until she wanted to scream with it, scream with joyous rapture and the unbearable agony of their love.
“Please,” she said, her fingers digging into his shoulders, holding his chest pressed to her breasts as he moved so deep within her. “Oh, please.” She felt as if she were reaching for something, something that hovered bright and promising, just out of her grasp.
“Ducemente, mon amanate,” he whispered, nuzzling her hair, his breath coming in hard, fast pants. He eased his hand between their bodies until it rested low on her belly, the heel of his hand pressing against her mound. Pressing, pressing, pressing her between the hardness of his hand and the hardness of his body thrusting into her, thrusting all the way to her heart.
She felt her love for him explode within her, an all-consuming, fiery wash of unbearably exquisite delight. As though through a dim haze, she saw his head fall back, his eyes squeezing shut, his face contorting as if in pain. She felt him give one last, violent thrust, deep within her. Then he reared back, the sweat-sheened muscles of his throat taut and bulging as he pulled himself out of her.
Gasping, she clutched at his arms, holding him as the shudders ripped through him. She knew he spilled his seed outside of her to keep from giving her his child. She knew it, but that did nothing to ease the sad, empty ache within her.
He wanted to hold her forever. Simply hold her.
He rolled onto his back and gathered her in his arms so that she lay on her side with her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, one hand flung across his heaving chest. His breath still came in ragged gasps. When he reached to smooth her hair from her damp forehead, his fingers shook.
He'd known this about love. That it could run so strong and deep that when combined with the heat of desire, it became dangerously overwhelming. He'd known this, yet he'd thought himself somehow different, thought he could resist. Now he knew himself humbled. And very afraid.
He felt her breasts press against him as she drew in a deep breath and pushed it out in a sigh. “I keep thinking I should feel guilt,” she said, her voice hushed. She turned, resting her bare forearms upon his chest so she could lift herself up and look into his face, her eyes wide and dark with emotion. “But all I feel is joy. A terrible joy.”
He could see her well now in the gathering light. He let his gaze rove over the delicate bones of her face, the high, wide brow and long, aristocratic nose, the full, trembling lips and proud, strong chin. He thought he could look at her forever. He wanted to look at her forever. He wanted to look into the faces of his children, his grandchildren, and see her features, her essence, mingled with his for all time. The thought of a life without her suddenly seemed almost more than he could bear.
A terrible joy. Yes, he thought; as great as it is, this joy is terrible, for it brings with it such fear of loss and the promise of unbearable pain.
He heard a lark's song floating sweet yet oddly sad from the wooded hills above. The morning air seemed to hurt his skin, hurt his chest as he drew in breath. With a fearful sense of urgency, he drew her up so that she lay along the length of his body. He caught her face between his hands, his lips capturing hers in a deep, desperate kiss. He had known these things about love, he thought, but he hadn't really understood. Hadn't understood at all.
“It will be daybreak soon,” she said, a smile in her voice as her mouth moved against his.
“Do you think the good pilgrims might be shocked”— he ran his tongue along her lower lip— “fi nding us like this?”
She touched his cheek and smiled. “I think they might.”
He sighed, his hands coursing down her bare back to cup her bottom. “I want to make love to you for hours, Attica. Slowly this time. I want to touch you all over. With my hands. With my lips. With my tongue.” He rubbed his partially open mouth against hers.
The lark sang again.
“Tonight,” she said with a laugh as he groaned and pressed his forehead against hers.
“And in a bed,” he added, the grass rustling beneath him as he shifted uncomfortably. “Tonight we need to find a bed.”
A reddish glow stained the pale horizon as they walked back to the pilgrims’ camp. The lush, knee-high meadow grass whispered about them, its sweet scent reminding Attica of summers past and the lost, happy hours of her childhood. She tightened her grip on Damion's hand. He turned his head to her and smiled.
Love bloomed in her heart, filling her with wild joy and an aching dread that tugged at her happiness. She told herself Stephen would support her when she approached their father on the subject of her marriage. She told herself that a man as loyal to his liege lord as Robert d'Alérion would never honor a marriage alliance made with a house that could turn traitor. She told herself that Old King Henry would reward Damion for his loyalty, reward him so handsomely that her father would see an alliance with him as valuable. She told herself these things because she needed to be able to hope. If she couldn't hope, she thought, she just might curl up into a little ball and die.
The pungent smell of woodsmoke drifted across the meadow along with the crackle of recently kindled fires and the faint murmur of anxious voices. She hadn't expected to find the camp already astir. Beside her, Damion stopped abruptly, his eyes narrowing as he gazed at the far hills.
Apprehension bloomed within her, deep and ominous. “What is it?” she asked, touching his arm.
He nodded toward the distant red glow. “The sun doesn't rise in the south, Attica.”
She followed his gaze, her grip on him tightening. “What can it mean?”
He shook his head, but something in his face told her he knew. He knew only too well.
“Damion—” She broke off at the sight of a weary horse, its heaving flanks stained dark and fleck
ed with foam, its head hanging in exhaustion as it was led toward the river. She saw a grim-faced, dusty man slumped beside one of the fires, talking to Father Sebastian. The one-armed priest looked up and saw them. He nodded at something the man said, then touched his shoulder as if in comfort and walked toward them.
“Surely that cannot be Tours?” Damion asked as the one-armed priest came up to them. “It is too near.”
The older man shook his head. “No. It seems Philip's move against Tours was only a feint. He has turned and attacked Henry at Le Mans instead.” Attica saw dark shadows shift, deep in the older man's eyes, as if he were remembering other cities, cities he himself had helped to sack. “They say the citadel still holds out. But the city itself is in flames.”
“And Henry?” Attica asked.
The priest turned to her. “He rides for Normandy. The nobles here have all deserted him, all but for the handful of his household knights who ride with him.”
Stephen, she thought, fear stealing her breath so that she could only nod when the priest excused himself and returned to the anxious pilgrims.
“Don't worry about Stephen,” Damion said, as if she had spoken aloud. “Henry must have managed to escape Le Mans before Philip's forces were able to lay siege to the city. Stephen will be with him.”
She turned to stare again at that hellish glow in the south. She was aware of a fine trembling within her, as if her entire world were shaking apart. “What do we do now?”
“Ride for Normandy. What else?”
He took her hand in his and together they walked toward the stretch of meadow where the tethered horses grazed in the pale light of early dawn. All around them the birds were awakening, fluttering through the dark silhouettes of the trees to rise up against the pearly sky, their voices blending into the heartrending song of dawn. Attica let her head fall back, watching them. She didn't understand how the world around her could seem so comfortingly calm and familiar, the new day so full of glorious promise, when her life as she knew it was collapsing.
“There is a convent,” Damion said slowly, “not far from here. Sainte-Geneviève-sur-Sarthe.” He paused, his head turned toward where the roan grazed, its tail flicking back and forth. “I would go there before we turn north.”
She looked at him in surprise. “A convent?”
An odd tension vibrated in the air as she waited for him to answer her. “The abbess is Isabelle d'Anjou,” he said at last, the name coming out unnaturally harsh and strained. “I need to talk to her. About this French code.”
Once, Isabelle d'Anjou had been a famous patroness of troubadours; more than a patroness—a poet and musician in her own right. Something niggled at Attica's memory, something that sent an indefinable frisson of uneasiness over her. “I had thought Isabelle d'Anjou dead since I was a small child,” she said, reaching out to run her hand over the roan's warm, satiny withers.
“No. She only took the veil.”
The roan lifted its head and swung about to nuzzle Attica's hair, its breath blowing hot and grassy against her face. Attica caught the horse's nose in her hands. “You know her?”
“I know her.” He sounded as if he would like to have left it at that, but he seemed to think he should perhaps say more. “If there is a system to indicate the length of notes, she will have heard of it.”
“Henry has been defeated,” Attica said, her gaze fixed firmly on the horse beside her. “What difference can deciphering the French code possibly make now?”
“It's not over yet. If Henry rides to Normandy, it is because he intends to raise an army there. There and in England. He'll not give up. Not as long as he lives.”
Her fingers trembled slightly as she let them trail over the roan's velvety soft muzzle. If she couldn't hope … Her chest suddenly felt tight, as if she had forgotten to breathe. But when she sucked in a deep draught of air, it only hurt worse. “If Henry is deposed,” she said softly, “my father will need the marriage alliance with Salers to secure his favor with Richard. He will never allow me to break my betrothal.”
“Then I'll just have to make sure Henry isn't deposed, won't I?”
She had been avoiding looking at him, but she couldn't seem to stop herself from turning now. He stared back at her, his green eyes brittle, the bones of his face standing out painfully sharp beneath the dark skin. She wished she hadn't looked.
She swung away from him to stand very still, her shoulders taut, her gaze fixed on a pair of pure white geese, their wings beating the clear dawn air as they rose from the surface of the slowly flowing stream. She was aware of him coming up behind her, although he didn't touch her in any way. Together they watched the geese take flight to soar above the meadow.
“They say geese mate for life. If they lose their mate, they don't take another. They simply live the rest of their lives alone.” He paused. “Have you heard that?”
“Yes.” She reached for his hand as the sun burst up over the hills in the east to send a wealth of golden light spilling across the meadow.
He laced his fingers with hers and drew her around until she was looking up into his hard, beautiful face. “You are my mate for life, Attica. No matter what happens, I'll never love another.”
He dipped his head to take her mouth in a warmly gentle kiss that ended all too quickly. As they turned to lead the horses back to camp, she looked for the geese. But the sky was empty and it was as if they had never been.
They made a wide arc around the city of Le Mans to come upon the convent of Sainte-Geneviève late in the afternoon.
The abbey clung to the side of a hill overlooking the Sarthe and, stretching beyond that, the gentle green valley of the Loire. The house was Benedictine now, but the huddle of ancient, low stone buildings was older than that. There had been a colony of women occupying the site since the fifth century, when, shortly after the death of a revered anchorite named Geneviève, a series of miracles had begun to occur among those who prayed in the holy woman's candlelit grotto.
Attica steadied the tired roan as they descended the steep path to the abbey, her gaze drifting over the simple stone structures built in terraced steps down the slope of the hillside. She found herself wondering what had driven a beautiful, wealthy, and renowned woman such as Isabelle d'Anjou to seek such a refuge.
Sainte-Geneviève-sur-Sarthe was known for its devotion and piety, not for its wealth or influence. Yet in her former life, Isabelle d'Anjou had been a grand noblewoman, great-niece of William of Aquitaine and wife of a powerful lord of Poitou, to whose court she had attracted the most learned men and talented musicians, poets, and artists of her day. It was difficult to imagine such a worldly woman in this bucolic setting.
They were nearing the convent gatehouse now. In the forecourt, Damion pulled off his helm and pushed back the hood of his hauberk, then dismounted to approach the porter on foot. Attica smiled. Even on foot and without his helm, he still seemed a frighteningly incongruous figure in this place of peace. The metal of the helm had left dark smudges on his nose and cheekbones, making him look fierce and dangerous.
She heard the scramble of tiny hooves as a herd of sheep came bounding up the rocky, sunlit hillside toward the gate, their woolly backs flashing white in the golden sunlight, their incessant bleating mingling with the wop-wop of a windmill's sails spinning in the fresh breeze. In anticipation of the flock's arrival, the convent's wooden gates stood open. But when Attica and Damion led their horses beneath the low arch, they found the entrance to the abbey's inner court suddenly blocked by the forbidding bulk of one of the largest nuns Attica had ever seen. Planting her black booted feet wide, the sister crossed her arms over her massive, black wool covered bosom and lowered her head to glare at them with a scowl that squashed three rippling chins against the white of her wimple.
“Good sister,” said de Jarnac, the first of the bleating, milling sheep trotting through the archway as he flashed the forbidding-looking nun his most charming smile. “We have come to see your abbess. If you would
—”
“Men of war are not welcome in this house. Pilgrims may enter, and those seeking alms may enter.” The nun paused, her beady dark eyes sweeping over him contemptuously. “But not men of war.”
De Jarnac's head reared back, his nostrils flaring. Thigh deep now in sheep, Attica had to wipe her sleeve across her face to hide an inappropriate grin as she watched him struggle to rein in his quick spurt of anger and keep that winsome smile in place. “Good sister.” He spread his arms wide as if in surrender. One of the sheep butted into him, hard enough to make him stagger. “I would willingly remove my sword and dagger and leave them in your keeping. If you would be so kind as to send word to your abbess—”
A disdainful grunt rumbled up from the depths of the nun's impressive chest. “Even without your sword and dagger, you are still a man of war. You are not welcome here. Be gone.”
Surrounded by sheep, the woman made as if to turn away, but Damion's cold, angry hiss stopped her, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword as if he meant to draw the blade and skewer her with it. “God rot you, Sister. You come back here.”
The nun whirled around, her eyes and mouth both opening wide as she skittered backward, the skirts of her long black habit flapping about her in the breeze like the wings of a startled crow floundering in the midst of a sea of bunching, bawling sheep.
“You will put down your sword and cease to abuse my nun,” said a calm, cultured voice behind Attica.
She spun around to find herself confronting a tall, elegant woman wearing the black habit, white wimple, and black veil of the order. She had startling green eyes and a beautiful, unlined face, although she was not young. Attica stared at the woman's proud, aristocratic nose and wide cheekbones, and felt her grip on her reins tighten until the edges of the leather bit into her palm.
The woman looked not at Attica but at the dark, dangerous knight at her side. That smooth, ageless face showed no trace of emotion. Yet nothing could disguise the shock and quick spurt of hope that flared up, painful and bright, in the depths of those unusual green eyes. As Attica watched, hope gave way first to disbelief, then to certainty, and, finally, to a wild, fierce leap of joy quickly contained by wariness.
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