Margo Maguire

by The Virtuous Knight

  Alex did not know what he would do after the Mandylion was safely delivered to Eryngton. Brother Roger had been right. But Alex was not yet ready to abandon his plan to devote his life to prayer and penance.

  What he’d begun to feel for Lucy was…was not yet definable. She was beautiful and giving, as generous as anyone he’d ever known. Their hours in the cottage the previous night had been playful and care-free—unlike any he’d ever known. Lucy was a fitting wife for any noble household. Yet a wife was the last thing Alex needed. Or wanted.

  He did not know what he would do with her.

  “’Tis certain my Anna has a meal ready for ye,” Edmund Morton said once Alex had unhitched Rusa and seen to the mare’s water and feed. “Shall we go inside and see?”

  “You go on ahead,” Alex said. “I’ll just gather our things.”

  Alex took the Mandylion from the place where he’d concealed it in the wagon, then picked up his saddle packs and walked through the rain toward the inn. He heard laughter and song as he approached, and wondered if the innkeeper’s children were entertaining Lucy.

  He stepped inside and found her sitting near the fire. She’d shed her cloak and was wearing the blue gown he’d purchased for her in York. Her hair glowed like burnished gold in the firelight and her smile tugged at the restraint he’d maintained all through the day.

  She was lovely.

  “Ah, here y’are!” The innkeeper’s wife carried two bowls and a loaf of coarse, brown bread from a back room. “’Twill take but a minute to fetch the rest of yer supper. I hope ye don’t mind that yer wife is keeping the children for now.”

  “No, I—”

  “’Tis so much easier to fetch and carry when I haven’t got one or t’other of ’em attached to m’apron.”

  She was suddenly gone from the room again, and Alex was left watching Lucy as she clapped and played with the children. The Mortons’ eldest girl was showing Lucy some game with her hands—each one held her hands up and clapped the other’s in rhythm while they sang rhyming words.

  It struck Alex then that Lucy’s girlhood had been cut short with the deaths of her brothers. She’d likely had a nurse who’d attended her, but afterward, there would have been little opportunity for play in the nunnery.

  Not that Lucy would have been well enough to play. He remembered her saying she’d been a sickly child. That the cousin had sent her to Craghaven to die.

  A cold fist tightened around his heart at the thought of Lucy dying among the Craghaven nuns. He uttered a quiet prayer of thanks that she had not, and that God had sent him on this path to Eryngton.

  Else he would never have met her. Would never have saved her from the brigands who’d attacked her party on the road. Would not have been there to pull her from the river when she nearly drowned. Alex would never have learned the taste of her sweet lips, or the exquisite pleasure he’d found in her body.

  Alex swallowed. He had kept his sensual thoughts at bay throughout the day and he would not think of her now, lying naked beneath him, her eyes sparkling playfully as they had last night, or sensuously as they’d been during the countless hours they’d spent entwined in their marriage bed.

  “Anna’s bringin’ out the pot,” Edmund said as he set two mugs of ale on the table. “Hope ye don’t mind ’tis naught fancy. Since we weren’t prepared for yer comin’.”

  “I’m sure it will be satisfactory,” Alex replied absently. He could not take his eyes from Lucy and the glow in her eyes. They’d finished the clapping game and now she held the youngest child upon her lap.

  Was it possible that she already carried their child within her? The thought gave him pause.

  He’d never considered the possibility of having another family…a wife, more children…

  The ale in Alex’s cup disappeared in one long gulp. He’d never had any intention of replacing Isabella and Geoffrey. They’d been his family, and he needed no other. Why had Brother Roger insisted that he wait to take his vows? Because of that promise, Alex’s life, his plans were now in chaos.

  “All right, here ’tis!” Anna Morton set the heavy pot in the center of the table. She served Alex, then filled a bowl for Lucy, who came to the table with the children following.

  Scowling at his meal, Alex hardly heard the questions the little ones asked. They were excessively interested in Lucy, but she seemed happy enough to indulge them. Anyone could see that she’d enjoyed their songs, their games.

  As Lucy took her seat next to Alex, the children gathered ’round her and asked if she’d been to the fair and whether she’d seen York Minster.

  “N-nay,” she replied. “I was there for only a very short time.”

  Being abused for a goodly part of it, Alex mused, his dark thoughts worsening. And then he had made her his wife and taken her to the priest’s cottage from which they had hardly emerged for two full days.

  ’Twas likely she did not fully grasp all that had happened to her in the short weeks since the Craghaven nuns were killed on the road. Alex certainly did not. Since that day, naught had gone according to any of his plans.

  “We weren’t allowed to sit with our last visitors,” the younger girl said. “Papa made us stay in the kitchen. But ’tis warm there, too, so we didn’t mind too much.”

  “That’s enough now, children,” said Anna. “Ye must leave our guests in peace, or I’ll shoo ye back into the kitchen.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind them,” Lucy said. “Let them stay.”

  “Have ye far to go, then?” asked the innkeeper. He’d poured a mug of ale for himself and sat at the end of the table near Alex.

  “I’m not sure,” Alex said. “We travel to Eryngton. Do you know how lo—”

  Beside him, Lucy choked.

  Alex moved quickly and gave her a firm pat on the back.

  “I’m all right,” she said, catching her breath. “Eryngton? Eryngton is nearby?”

  “Aye, ’tis,” answered the innkeeper. “On horseback—half a day’s journey north.”

  “What do you know of Eryngton?” Alex asked, frowning. By her reaction to the name, Alex was certain she was somehow familiar with the place.

  He watched as she swallowed visibly. “’Twas my home….” she said quietly. “A lifetime ago.”

  Her words struck him like a blow to his chest. It could not be. Somehow, the estate he’d named was… Nay, there could only be one Eryngton. The Kendal family seat. “Roger Kendal was…was your brother?” he asked.

  Her head dipped slightly and Edmund Morton slapped his thigh. “Ah, ye’re the lass was sent down to a nunnery when Lord John died and Hugh Kyghley became earl. Lady Lucy!”

  “Aye,” she replied soberly. She pushed away her bowl, apparently no longer interested in her food. “Lord Hugh is my cousin. Still Earl of Eryngton, I suppose.”

  “I remember ye well,” the man said. Caught up in his own memories, he did not notice the change in Lucy’s mood. “Ye stayed here—’twas m’father’s inn before me, for I was just a lad at the time—ye stayed here with the old abbess and a couple o’ younger nuns.”

  “I don’t remember it well.”

  “Nay, ye wouldn’t,” Morton remarked. “Ye were too ill, even to know where ye were.”

  Alex’s hackles went up at the thought of cousin Hugh sending Lucy off when she’d been so clearly ill. She’d just lost her only brother, and was close to death herself. Couldn’t the man have shown some compassion for his ailing little cousin? When Alex got to Eryngton, he would see that—

  The thought hit him like a blow—Roger’s brother was dead. And Roger himself had been believed dead for a number of years.

  Alex was going to have to tell Lucy that her brother had only recently died. That he’d gone away on Crusade and left her at the mercy of her coldhearted cousin.

  Alex did not understand why Roger had not contacted his family after he’d survived the shipwreck. He could not figure why Roger had let them believe he was dead.

  It made no sense. R
oger knew he was his brother’s heir. He had to have known the estate—and his young sister—would become his responsibility if John died. Had Roger been at Eryngton at the time of John’s death, Lucy would never have been sent to Craghaven.

  “Ye stayed here an extra week with the lung fever. They called in the priest one night, for fear ye wouldn’t last ’til the morn.”

  Lucy stood abruptly and stepped away from the table, gathering the children ’round her. “Come,” she said. “Shall we sing some more? I’m sure you have songs you have not yet taught me.”

  “But you have not finished—”

  Lucy interrupted the eldest daughter. “Aye, I have.” She picked up the bairn and went back to the hearth. “Let’s sing the one about the merry summer. You said there was a dance, too.”

  Anna Morton smacked her husband’s head. “Ye’ve made her weep,” she said in a hushed tone, clearly angry with him.

  “My apologies, Sir Alex,” he said. “I spoke without realizing….”

  “’Tis not your fault. My wife has not thought of her brothers in some years,” he said, arising from his place at the table. He had not seen Lucy’s tears, but the set of her shoulders told him that she was upset. She had gone along with the children, but her heart was elsewhere. “Had I known this place would bring back memories…” He shook his head. “’Tis only natural that coming here would sadden her.”

  He followed Lucy and the children, reaching over the Mortons’ smallest girl to take Lucy’s hand. “Time we retired for the night.”

  When she looked up at him, the only evidence of her distress was her slightly reddened nose and the unshed tears in her overly bright eyes.

  Lucy did not argue or resist, but went with him easily, bidding the children good-night. Alex picked up a lamp, then took her hand and placed it in the crook of his elbow. “Which way to our chamber?”

  A fire burned brightly in the hearth of their room. The large bed was piled with soft quilts and rested against the far wall. Alex followed Lucy inside and barred the door behind them.

  Lucy felt ill. Feeling a deep chill, she stood in front of the fire, unable to move, to speak. She faced the fire with her hands clasped tightly at her waist. She thought of Roger, and the farewells he’d made before going on Crusade. He had promised to return once he’d made his pilgrimage.

  He’d lied.

  “Some time ago, you spoke of a man who survived a shipwreck in the Aegean Sea….” she finally said. Her voice was not as steady as she would have liked, but she needed to ask. “’Twas Roger, was it not?”

  Alex nodded. “Aye.”

  She had suspected as much when she learned that Alex’s destination was Eryngton. Alex had spoken of a Brother Roger when they’d discovered the Mandylion inside the silver scabbard. Who else but Roger would have sent Alex to Eryngton?

  Emotion welled in her heart and threatened to spill over. “Why did he never….”

  She turned away from Alex to face the darkness beyond their window. Her eyes were trained upon the glass, but she stood unseeing, her pain mixed with confusion.

  “During my first year at Craghaven,” she said, “I prayed every day that Roger would intercede for me— I knew he was in heaven, of course. I asked him to help me find a way out of the nunnery.”

  She remembered all those prayers. On her knees every morn, noon, night, in spite of the excruciating ache in her hip; regardless how much her lungs had to strain for every breath. All those words…prayed in vain.

  “I was certain he looked down upon me from Saint Peter’s knee, else he’d have returned to me….” She swallowed. “To us, at Eryngton.”

  “Lucy…”

  “Did you know?” she asked, turning to look at him. “All along, did you know that Roger was my brother?”

  She barely saw him shake his head. “Nay. Roger never spoke of his home. I did not know he had a sister.”

  His words felt like a knife in her heart. Roger had said naught of her to his closest friend.

  He had abandoned her and his responsibility to Eryngton. He had become a man of the Church, with no earthly cares beyond those given him by his Order.

  And his small, unprotected sister was not one of them.

  Chapter Twenty

  Alex undressed her slowly, using great care, leaving her in her chemise. He turned down the bed and guided her into it. A moment later he’d shed his own clothes.

  He slid into the bed, pulled her into his arms and held her until she fell asleep.

  Yet sleep did not come to him. Lucy did not weep, but her distress cut him deeply. He could not keep from thinking Roger should have stayed in England. Undoubtedly, his presence would have eased his sister’s life.

  But Roger had gone away, and in the years Alex had known him, the man had barely given her a thought.

  Had Roger’s religious calling been more important than Lucy’s well-being? ’Twas a shocking thought for Alex, who had been about to follow Roger’s example.

  Now he wondered how ’twould go for his own brother’s family if Philip should die. When Alex had left Clyfton three years ago, Philip had had four daughters—and no male heir. For all Alex knew, he was still Philip’s heir. Had he turned his back upon his own responsibilities, just as Roger had done?

  He tucked Lucy’s head under his chin and thought about what he needed to do. His charge to deliver the Mandylion to Eryngton was null, now that he knew John Kendal was not earl. Alex would not leave it with a man so callous as Lucy’s cousin.

  But what would he do with it? Take it to France and leave it at Cluny?

  Skelton’s men knew only two things about Alex. That he’d been Roger Kendal’s escort from Cluny to the Holy Land, and that Roger would have sent Alex with the Mandylion to a secure place—his former home in England.

  If Alex never arrived at Eryngton, mayhap the knights would assume they’d been mistaken, and abandon their search in England to pursue him in France. If that occurred, Alex might still be able to find a suitable place for the ancient cloth in England.

  He believed there was a monastery somewhere north of York. ’Twould be easy enough to determine its location, and possibly travel there to leave the Mandylion with the abbot.

  But Alex was loathe to leave it with someone he did not know, or someone who had not been recommended to him. Monasteries were subject to politics as well as plundering. What if the abbot were an unscrupulous man? That was known to happen on occasion, and could be the case at the Yorkshire abbey.

  Roger had not wanted the cloth to go to the monastery at Cluny. Had his only reason been because he knew Skelton would assume Alex would take the Mandylion there? Or were there some conflicting politics within the monks’ ranks of which Alex was unaware?

  Mayhap the current earl of Eryngton was not as evil a man as Alex had been led to believe. If John Kendal had left some provision for his sister to be removed to Craghaven in the event of his death, then the cousin would have had no choice but to send Lucy there. If that happened to be the case, then mayhap the Mandylion could be safely left in the care of the earl.

  Alex supposed he should find out.

  Lucy stirred in her sleep and absently, Alex pulled her deeper into the warmth of his body. The black knights were nowhere near, they were warm in their snug room, and she was safe in his arms. He drifted into sleep, feeling peaceful and secure, though he still had not determined what to do with the Mandylion.

  Or with Lucy.

  Roger had been dead—at least for Lucy—more than ten years. There was no reason for grief to take hold of her so painfully now.

  Except that he never sent word that he’d survived the shipwreck. For all those years, Lucy had believed Roger’s bones lay at the bottom of the Aegean Sea, while his soul was in heaven with God and all His archangels. She could not imagine why Roger had not contacted her.

  In truth, she did not wish to face what she knew was true…that to Roger, his religious calling was of greater importance than anything that could pos
sibly occur at Eryngton.

  ’Twas still night when she awoke with Alex sleeping soundly beside her. One of his arms lay draped over her middle, his leg resting between hers. His breathing was rough in her ear.

  Lucy knew that Alex’s religious calling was important to him, too. Once he delivered the Mandylion to Hugh, would he forsake her and return to Cluny according to his plan when he set out from Jerusalem? She had had her doubts right after the marriage, and now they came back to her, worse than before.

  She did not know how she would face living without him.

  With his features relaxed in sleep, Lucy admired each one in turn…his long, dark lashes; his nose, straight and masculine; lips that were deceptively warm and soft; his jaw, dark with the whiskers that grew every night…

  She touched his hair and longed to press her lips to his, to make love with him before he—like Roger—decided that his duty to God was of greater consequence than anything he might feel for Lucy.

  She loved the way they’d laughed together after their excursion into York the previous night. The weight of responsibility had been lifted from Alex’s shoulders for that short interlude, and his playfulness had delighted her. His smiles had touched her heart, his laughter had melted it.

  But it would not last. Lucy sensed that they had few days left together. Her heart, which had felt so light only the day before, was weighted by sorrow now.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I decide whether I can leave the Mandylion with Eryngton,” Alex said.

  Lucy nodded and watched him mount Rusa in the inn yard. The ornate scabbard containing the Mandylion was hidden beneath his saddle packs. She felt afraid, though she had no solid reason for it. He was coming back.