by Ann Lawrence
Before leaving the chamber, Cristina went to the coffer where Luke had placed the herbal and lifted the lid. The Aelfric was not on top, and she had not the courage to rummage through the rolls and other books. How she wished to have the Aelfric. It was a finer treasure to her than any sum of gold. “If I had ink and paper, I would make my own Nominum Herbarum,” she said aloud.
When the door opened, she just had time to whirl away from the coffer and snatch up her basket before Lord Penne entered. He glanced at the table. “Forgive my intrusion.”
“Nay,” she said. “Forgive mine.” She left quickly.
Was it Lord Penne who intrigued with Lady Sabina? The thought grieved her. If the Lady Oriel sought her potion for herself, she was wrong that her husband did not yet stray.
* * * * *
The lords and ladies returned from a day of hunting in high spirits, the scent of the outdoors on their clothes. There would be a high demand for her lotions tomorrow if the red cheeks of the ladies were any indication. Cristina listened from her bench with half an ear as Luke and several men, the bishop included, argued about the hunt.
“They shall all be put to shame when King John arrives with his hawks,” Luke said, ending the discussion.
“His wagons come on the morrow,” Durand said. “His party will eat us out of our winter stores in less than a fortnight. We’ll need every penny in our coffers to replenish them.”
Lady Sabina leaned over the back of his chair and whispered something in his ear.
Who would meet with Lady Sabina at the hour of twelve? Lord Penne? Or did he but collect the message for another? Sir Luke? Lord Durand? Or had Penne only wanted the love potion?
Cristina ate quickly and returned to the babe, who fretted and refused to nurse. With the child in her arms, she paced the small alcove, past her worktable. There was nothing to do there. The mixture of freckle cream, if stirred, lost its effectiveness. The rose oil was perfect, ready to add to small pots of skin lotion.
She boosted the babe up to the window. “Look, Felice. The clouds seem to touch the towers, they’re so low. It shall rain before morning.” But Felice would not be amused, nor soothed.
“Walk ‘er about, miss,” Alice said. “So an old body can rest.”
Cristina smiled. “I’ll take her for a stroll about the bailey, if it pleases you.”
The old woman grinned, revealing she had lost another front tooth, and draped a mantle about her. Cristina tucked the squalling infant into her sling with a kiss.
“Good night wiv ye. Find a corner when she settles and put her to breast. Ye’ll save me ears ifn ye do.”
* * * * *
Durand turned over on his back and looked up at the glowering sky through his open shutters. Why could he not sleep? A lump in his mattress felt as large as a millstone. He shifted his shoulders, but failed to get comfortable. He sat up and pounded the lump into submission. As he lay back he heard the wail of an infant. Only one babe dwelled in the castle—or one he had noticed—but the child and her nurse resided in the east tower. Mayhap there were dozens of infants about. There were so many guests now, he could not keep them and their retainers straight.
He rose and went to the window, propped his arms on the wide stone sill, and looked out. Cool air washed over his bare skin. The bailey was filled with folk as if it were daylight. Men worked through the night to see everything was in readiness for the king’s invasion of Normandy. He could see the glow of the forge and hear the ring of the hammer on the anvil. Thunder rumbled over the distant hills as if God, too, readied for war.
Cristina le Gros crossed the bailey.
“What the devil is she about?” He drew on his clothing and thrust his dagger into his belt. Within moments he stood in the bailey. He saw her by the stable, no purpose in her manner. Indeed, she wandered, swinging her skirts side to side in what Luke would surely call a fairy dance. He decided it was her way of soothing the infant.
“What the devil am I doing here?” he asked himself as he strode to the stables. His steps slowed when she sat on a bench, nearly invisible in her dark mantle among the shadows cast by torches on the stable wall. He propped his shoulder by his destrier’s stall in his own pool of darkness. As he watched, Cristina unlaced her gown—slowly, as a woman might to entice her lover—and bared her breast. He held his breath at the alabaster gleam of her skin, the full roundness of her flesh, the dark point of her nipple, which she offered to the child.
Marion’s child.
His groin throbbed with desire for Cristina. More confused emotions filled him for the child. Those he set aside.
“I’m as much a dog as Luke,” he said softly. “I’ve been too long without a female if the mere sight of a nursing woman raises my lust.”
But flesh was flesh, and she had abundant and beautiful breasts. He could almost feel them in his hands. Yet if she were but a bountifully made woman, he could resist her. Certainly he resisted Lady Sabina’s sweet tits when faced with them each day. Nay, he had lost himself to Mistress le Gros’ soothing touch and misguided arguments on Aristophanes.
His horse poked his head from the stable door and whickered a greeting. Durand stroked the horse’s velvety nose. “I am seduced by philosophy, my fine fellow.” But, if he were truthful, he was equally drawn to Cristina by those breasts that would cushion a man’s troubled head in heavenly softness.
She murmured something to the babe and shifted the child from one breast to the other. Her hair was loose, in a fall of waves to her waist.
“Ah, Marauder, I am lost,” he whispered at the horse’s ear.
The chapel bells rang the hour. Twelve. He stroked the horse’s head and nourished his parched soul. When she finished the feeding, he’d go. Until then, he could no more move his gaze from her bent head or creamy skin, exposed further as her gown slipped off her shoulder, than a starving man could move from a table laden with food.
* * * * *
Cristina tucked Felice into her sling. “You greedy little pig. Why could you not eat so in our chamber?” She rose and, giving in to curiosity at the peal of the bells, walked not toward the east tower, but to the west.
Several men hurried by on some business, heads together, their voices unnaturally loud in the darkness. A gust of wind lifted her hem and snapped the fabric against her calves.
Two men passed her: Lord Penne and Sir Luke.
“Bother. They go together! Now I’ll never know.” But the men parted company, Luke heading for the chapel, Lord Penne turning aside to the great hall.
Mystery solved. Sir Luke met Lady Sabina. Penne must have been fetching his love potion. She did not need to see the assignation, and so, satisfied that Lady Oriel was to sleep in her husband’s arms, she turned and collided with Lord Durand and tumbled to the cobbles.
“Felice!” she cried. She pulled back the swaddling and found the babe still asleep. Lord Durand’s strong hands swept her back onto her feet.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, raking her hair back from her face.
“Nay. Aye. I don’t know.” She shook her head. Her bottom smarted most painfully, but she could not tell him that!
The sky opened. Rain pelted her head and shoulders. She yelped and bent over to shelter Felice from the onslaught. Lord Durand grabbed her arm and dragged her the few steps into the shelter of the chapel. It was as cold and damp as a crypt.
Her altar oil filled the chapel with the scent of sage. No priest said Mass, no penitents knelt at prayers. No Lady Sabina embraced Sir Luke. They were alone. Where had Luke gone?
Lord Durand laughed as he shook the rain from his head. “We’re trapped.”
The rain fell in a solid wall of water, formed a curtain across the chapel entrance, and gushed in rivers across the bailey stones. She stared out at the night, black, cold. Private.
“How fares the child?” he asked.
“Blissfully asleep. I came out because she’s been fretting all night. Now, when she should by rights be frightened silly, she�
�s at complete peace.”
“Why should she be frightened?”
Cristina looked up at him. His hair was wet, his gray eyes dark shadows in his face. Water beaded his skin. “I-I don’t know. The rain. Our fall.” Her every sense was on fire in his presence. His scent filled her head, negated the powerful altar oils, drew her as if she had never drunk the resistance potion.
“But she’s not injured? You’re not injured?” He lifted her chin.
Simon had done so but a day before. Simon’s touch left her cold; this man’s enthralled her. He was naught but a tale one told in old age. A tale of a lord who spoke to her as an equal, aroused her senses, made her wish to be a fine lady. It was a sin to think of him at all…a greater sin to think of the hard line of his jaw, his scent, here in God’s chapel.
“Where?” he asked softly.
“Where?” she whispered. His fingers were warm on her chin.
“Where are you injured?”
“Oh,” she stepped away, breaking the contact. “I’m not injured.”
“Nonsense. You took quite a spill—”
The soft scrape of a shoe on stone interrupted him. Turning, Lord Durand used one hand to shift her behind him.
Cristina felt the pressure of Lord Durand’s hand and she heeded it, backing into the wall of water, and out into the night.
Her heart raced. She ran, mantle close about the child, to the hall. As she hurried through the vast space, filled with sleeping men and women on pallets, she moaned. Her spine and bottom ached miserably. Her head throbbed on each step up to her chamber. Her heart thudded like a hammer on an anvil.
Had the person in the chapel seen her—seen Lord Durand touching her? Was it Luke? He’d surely say naught, but what if Lady Sabina had arrived and witnessed their exchange? Cristina cringed when she thought of that lady’s tart tongue.
She tiptoed about for a moment, then took less care, for Alice snored heavily on a pallet in the corner, a cloud of ale fumes issuing forth with every breath. Felice slipped her fingers into her mouth when placed on her back in her cradle and made her own puffing sounds of deep sleep. “You imp. Now you sleep.”
Sodden garments clung to Cristina’s legs and back. She stripped them and laid them out over a bench by the fire. After donning a clean shift, she knelt there to dry her hair.
The thread of her thoughts wound from Lord Penne, to Luke, to Lord Durand.
A lady’s note. An assignation.
All was suddenly clear. Lord Durand met the Lady Sabina in the chapel.
“You’re a fool, Cristina,” she whispered to the crackling flames. “Lord Penne must have retrieved the note for Lord Durand so he’d not be seen to receive it, and Luke merely cleared the chapel for his brother. They work in concert to aid their master.” A tangle snagged her fingers. “Of course his friends would see their lord was not disturbed. Of course ‘tis Lord Durand who meets with Lady Sabina. Lady Marion is not long enough dead to allow him to openly court her.” She rose hastily to her feet. “Oh, this wretched hair. Ugly as old wool!”
Cristina tossed back the lid of a small box that contained all she owned: precious sewing needles, a length of ribbon from Lady Marion, a horn comb which she plucked up and yanked through her snarled tresses. “What concern of mine is it that Lord Durand makes love in the chapel?”
She threw the comb on the table, where it landed in the rose oil. The dish tipped, spilling the oil across the table. “Oh, a plague on fine ladies,” she muttered. Tears pricked at her eyes. “Look what I’ve done! Hours of work wasted! The oil’s ruined!” She dropped a length of linen on the mess to prevent it from dripping off the table.
Her hair still damp and tangled, she threw herself on her bed. The canopy overhead had a rent, chewed by a mouse she imagined. She rolled to her side, punched her pillow, sat up, climbed out of bed. In two steps she was at her table and had retrieved the comb and wiped it clean. With painstaking care, she mopped up the oil and tidied the worktable. She scrubbed the top, then folded the rose oil-soaked cloth and placed it exactly in the center of the table.
With her agitation’s abatement, the wind outside died. The sudden silence drew her to the window. She flung open the shutters and stared down into the bailey, but saw naught but shrouds of mist. At last, she stretched out on her bed atop the coverlet, the damp air stirring across the chamber and over her heated skin.
“Get to sleep, Cristina. You shall be gathering roses tomorrow at dawn whilst finer ladies rest from a surfeit of lovemaking.”
Chapter Seven
Durand crossed his arms over his chest and tried to ignore the water dripping down his neck. “How do you come to be here, Simon? Were you somehow occupied that you did not heed the closing of the gates?”
“Ah, my lord.” Simon licked his lips. “I did not expect to meet you here. I’m to…that is, I’m to meet…” Simon dipped his head and thrust his hands up into his capacious sleeves.
“You may as well say who you’re to meet, as I’ll know in but a moment.”
“Then I must confess I’m to meet a woman.”
“A woman? When you’ve a wife as pleasing as yours, you’re seeking after another?” Durand took a quick glance behind him to be sure Cristina was gone. He heard nothing to indicate she lingered, and he hoped she’d not heard Simon’s words.
Simon glanced about. “My lord, we’re both men who have traveled much. You must know that ‘tis ofttimes necessary to seek some solace with another. After all, my Cristina is quite occupied with your daughter.”
“If her duties are a burden to you, I shall release her.”
“Nay! Please. We strive only to serve you. Don’t be hasty! Cristina would be heartbroken to be set aside as nurse!”
“Is not the setting aside by a husband—” Durand broke off. Lady Sabina stood in the chapel entrance. He knew her by the embroidered mantle she wore. Rain glistened off the scarlet hood in the meager light of the chapel candles.
“Forgive my intrusion,” Durand said. He stepped past Lady Sabina and strode out into the rain. It poured in icy discomfort down his shoulders. He made a search of the bailey, but Mistress le Gros was long gone.
He headed for her tower to see if she was injured from her fall, then hesitated. Would she read the knowledge on his face that her husband strayed?
What ailed le Gros? And what had he to offer Sabina?
“I am a hypocrite,” he whispered with a glance up at the light that gleamed through Cristina’s shutters. “I’d have done more than touch Mistress le Gros if her husband had not come upon the scene.” He could feel the smoothness of her skin, catch her scent on the wind—imagination, he knew. If the truth were known, he would have taken her there in the chapel even if he was to be damned for all eternity.
In his chamber, Durand paced from corner to corner. Every step on the rushes reminded him of Cristina. The scented soap in a silver bowl, stamped with the raven, filled his head, made him ache to call for a bath even as midnight drifted toward dawn.
He fell into a chair. “Ah, Marion, who am I to condemn you for your lovers? Surely, I’m as dishonorable to your memory and to Simon’s vows as you were to ours. If Cristina put out her hand, I would take it up.”
Several hours later, he still stared into the hearth fire, desires rampant. “Jesu.” He rose and threw open the door. With a brisk nod, he passed the sentry at the foot of his stairs and then walked quietly through the hall to the east tower. He would see if the child was injured from the fall in the bailey. At Cristina’s door, he hesitated but a moment before he opened it.
The act took him past some boundary heretofore he had never violated.
The scent of roses filled the air.
He felt as if he’d stepped into a rose garden. And in the center of the bower lay Cristina, curled on her bed, one hand beneath her cheek, childlike, her lips slightly parted. Innocent. What would he make of her if he persuaded her to his bed?
An adulteress.
Would she come if he ask
ed? He sensed something between them, like the perfume when she passed that lingered in his head, an intangible thing not seen, but felt low in his belly.
The shift she wore gleamed white in the chamber lit only by the lingering embers of a banked fire. He roamed her chamber, skimming his fingers over her mantle draped on a bench, still wet from their dash across the bailey. The cradle lay in deep darkness, the babe indistinguishable from the shadow. Alice snored noisily on a corner pallet, blankets about her head.
Durand returned to the bed. His body ached for the woman lying there, her hair tangled across her pillow—hair that would flow through his hands like silk. What would it be like to bury his face in that hair?
The blood of desire filled his body.
His breath caught in his throat as she moaned softly and shifted, rolling to her back, her breasts now straining the cloth, dark nipples thrust against the linen.
Against all sense, all the crying fears of discovery that webbed the night, he moved to the head of the bed.
In his dreams, in the days to come, he would touch her cheek. She would open her eyes, lift her arms, and welcome him to the warmth of her bed…and body.
In this, the cold hour before dawn, he retreated to his chamber, where he watched the morning rise over the land, cool air washing his face. Glass had once filled his window until Marion had thrown a dish at his head. Thrown it because he had locked her garden and banished her lover.
Tossing open his coffer, he dug to the bottom, to a painted box carved with ravens. A box of keys. He immediately saw what he wanted—a large iron key, rusty with disuse.
* * * * *
He found Cristina later that morning near the castle wall in the cook’s garden, the edge of her hem damp with dew, gathering wild roses in a basket. Her skirt swayed with her walk as she bent and cut the blooms. He watched her lift each flower to her face, then skim it across her cheek before placing it carefully in the basket.
Her profile was serene, her cheeks tinted with the same color as the flowers she held.
