Dark Champion

by Jo Beverley

  And are women infants? Imogen thought. Yet you protect us from making our own mistakes. But she had the wisdom to clamp her lips on such words.

  When all the men had had their say, Henry asked, “And do any speak for Imogen of Carrisford in this?”

  Imogen couldn’t help it: she looked at FitzRoger. But though he met her eyes, and he had not spoken against her, he did not now speak for her. She lowered her head.

  “Imogen of Carrisford,” said the king, “you are young, and have undergone many trials in recent days. First you lost your beloved father, then your castle was sacked. Witnesses have told us how you acted with courage and resolution to preserve your home. Just before your crime you had been in great personal danger, and had been forced to act against your woman’s nature to escape. In view of your husband’s faith in you, we accept that the strain of being forced to these unwomanly acts disturbed your mind in a temporary way. We put this penalty upon you, and this only: that you kneel here before us all and admit on the cross that what you did was wrong, and beg your husband’s pardon.”

  A sober-faced monk came forward and presented Imogen with a jeweled reliquary cross.

  Imogen took it, looking around wildly. Her eyes fixed on FitzRoger’s and she saw a strange look flit across his impassive features. Did he know she couldn’t take such an oath?

  She sank to her knees, clutching the cross to her chest. “On the cross,” she said, “I am truly sorry for having caused all this distress, and I sincerely beg the pardon of my husband, my king, and all here present.”

  It was not to be so easy.

  “Lady Imogen,” said the king, “I am sure you are sorry for causing yourself to be here today. You will have to be more specific.”

  Imogen tried again, without much hope. “On the cross, I am most heartily sorry that I had to take such steps against my husband, and I beg his pardon.”

  The muttering started up again, swelling to a roar. The king shook his head. “You are not going to swear, are you, Lady Imogen?”

  She faced him, tears blurring her vision. “I have made one false oath on the cross in my life, sire, and that was so painful to my soul that I cannot bear to do it again. I love my husband, Your Majesty, and I cannot believe it was wrong to preserve his life, even though I suffer grievously for it. I do, however, most sincerely beg his pardon, and yours, and that of all here present, that my actions have caused such distress, and that my refusal now will doubtless make matters worse.”

  Henry looked nothing so much as exasperated. His fingers rapped angrily.

  In the silence, FitzRoger stood. He held out a hand. “The whip.”

  Imogen started as she realized one had been there waiting all along. She stared at her husband as he walked toward her. She noticed that he still limped slightly.

  “Remove your cloak,” he said to her.

  Dry-mouthed, Imogen undid the clasp and let it fall to puddle around her.

  She gazed up at him, so tall and dark. The first time she’d seen him, he’d been flogging a miscreant.

  “Do you accept that it is my right to punish you?” he asked.

  She nodded, then found her voice. “Yes, my lord.”

  “I suppose when you were about to strike me down with a rock you fully expected to be punished for it.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I would hate to disappoint you.” The whip hissed and Imogen gasped under the fire across her back. She stared forward, still clutching the cross, praying for courage.

  FitzRoger walked away and tossed the whip on the table. Imogen stared as he turned to face the hall and her. “Any further discussion of this matter between my wife and myself will be in private. But if events here should get home to your wives, you men may at least tell them that Lady Imogen was publicly whipped for her sins.”

  The muttering grew, and then one man rose angrily. “I say it’s not good enough. It’s to condone her actions! If Lord FitzRoger is too squeamish to whip his wife here and now, I’ll do it for him!”

  “Any man who injures my wife in any way, ever, will answer to me.”

  Silence fell, and the standing man sank back into his seat.

  FitzRoger looked around the hall. “Does any man here speak against my decision in this? I will be happy to put the matter to the test of the sword.”

  No one spoke. It was not surprising. Imogen could hear the killing anger in his voice. She was close to fainting under the weight of it, for she feared it was mostly directed at her.

  FitzRoger raised Imogen to her feet with an ungentle hand on her arm. “Then my wife is restored to her honor in the world’s eyes, and will be treated thusly.” He bowed to the king. “By your will, my liege.”

  Henry frowned, but said, “So be it, but as a husband myself, I think it best if no word of events here escapes to infect the women of England.”

  Imogen couldn’t help but think that a little of that infection might do everyone good, but she hastily lowered her eyes and resolved to keep her mouth shut.

  Perhaps not hastily enough. “Take your wife away, Ty,” said Henry testily, “and teach her proper behavior. And take the whip. I think you’ll need it.”

  FitzRoger led the way, and Imogen followed in submissive silence, nervously watching the whip tap against his leg as he walked, but also noting his limp with concern. Was it permanent?

  When they entered the solar, Imogen looked around the scene of old pain and battles and wondered how life and herself could have changed so much since she had last been in it.

  Then she looked at her husband, black from head to toe and angry, and her knees knocked.

  He walked away from her and turned, whip still in hand, eyes blazing with contained anger. “You are in the wrong. Say it.”

  She swallowed. “In the eyes of the world, I am wrong. I know that.”

  “I warn you, Imogen. I’d enjoy beating you.” Then he seemed to see the whip in his hand, and he hurled it away to clatter on the floor. Imogen almost crumbled in relief.

  “Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused? You irritated one of Henry’s sore spots—justice—and I’ve had to apply all my skills, and some risky pressure, to have the matter handled so lightly. Do you understand?”

  Imogen nodded and tried very hard to stop her lips from quivering under this verbal lashing. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Sorry for what? That’s the question.”

  She glanced at him. “Sorry that you’re angry with me,” she admitted.

  He laughed shortly. “Always honest. Your besetting sin.”

  “You’d rather I were dishonest?”

  “It would make life easier for all.”

  Two tears escaped, and Imogen brushed them away and sniffed.

  “By the Grail, Imogen”—and the rage was lessening—“I’m not angry at you for being truthful. Though if you’d taken that oath, it would all have gone a great deal easier.”

  She raised her chin. “I won’t take another false oath, FitzRoger,” she said bleakly. “It hurts too much.”

  “My all-too-honorable virago.” He sighed. “Don’t you know yet, Imogen, that life is an affair of tooth and claw, not a pretty tale of paladins and princesses?”

  She shook her head.

  He took to pacing the room. “You terrify me! You’re like me at thirteen, facing down Roger of Cleeve and listing off his sins. Virtuously right, but headed for bloody martyrdom.”

  She met his eyes. “But right.”

  He jabbed a finger at her. “Don’t forget the bloody martyrdom.”

  “I don’t. You rescued me, my paladin.”

  He shook his head. “Imogen, I’m no paladin.”

  “You are to me. You’ve been trying to rescue me from my own foolishness since I hit you, haven’t you?”

  He collapsed down on the bench. “So I’m transparent now, am I?”

  She just looked at him.

  “Yes,” he said with irritation, “as soon as I regained my wits I knew we had a
problem. With hindsight it would have been better if Renald hadn’t carried you off to Cleeve. Better politically, but not for your skin.” He looked for a telling—almost longing—moment at the whip, then back at her.

  “Once there, however,” he carried on, “I thought it better to keep you at Cleeve until I could see my way clear. I was hoping that the evil found when they seized Warbrick Castle would sway Henry, but it was by no means certain. He is determined to have good justice in this land.”

  “I confess I didn’t think much of my execution of Warbrick. I was far more worried that you would cast me off for assaulting you.”

  His eyes turned serious. “I would never do that, Imogen.”

  There was no warmth in it, but it warmed her all the same. She worried, though, at the sense of something yet to come. Surely he had forgiven her. . . .

  Imogen became bold enough to sit on the edge of the bed and to put aside the cross she had been clutching like a ward against evil. “Thank you for trying to clear up the problem I caused.”

  “What else could I do? You are my wife.” There was still no tenderness to read in him.

  Imogen could have wept. Was this all there was to be, this detached concern? Would they never regain those hours in the cave—bleak hours of fear, and yet the sweetest of her life? She too looked at the whip. If it would get them past his anger, she would present it to him on her knees.

  “Anyway,” he said, “you rescued yourself from the more serious charge with your quick wits.” He groaned. “Jesu, but my heart was in my mouth when you threw Henry’s words back at him.”

  “Was that dangerous? I wasn’t sure. But I couldn’t think what else to do. I was so afraid.”

  “Imogen, didn’t you know I’d never let you really suffer?” She could almost think he was hurt.

  “Of course I did,” she assured him. “That was what I was afraid of.”

  He exploded to his feet. “By the Host, Ginger! Haven’t you learned yet? You’re not supposed to protect me. I’m supposed to protect you.”

  The use of his special name brought a glow to her heart. “I can’t help it, FitzRoger, I love you.”

  He stopped as if she’d hit him on the head with a rock again.

  “Tell me something,” she said softly, and he looked up, eyes shadowed and unreadable. “Would you rather I had let you fight Warbrick?”

  “Make no mistake, Imogen. If you’d been within reach during my first anger, you would have suffered dearly for your action.”

  “You did warn me to keep out of range of your first rage.”

  He shook his head in exasperation. “Are you even aware that most of those men hope I’m beating you black and blue?”

  “Yes. I’m also aware that you’re evading my question.”

  He shook his head again, but he answered. “No. At this moment, I would not rather you had let me fight Warbrick.”

  Before she could comment, he added, “But don’t ever do anything like that again.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Perhaps not. But from now on, you will behave correctly according to your sex and station.”

  Imogen sighed for what might have been. “You had better send me to a convent, then. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t be a meek, dutiful woman anymore. It’s as if something has broken, something that can never be mended.”

  He laughed sharply. When she stared, he said, “I’m trying to remember when you ever were a meek, dutiful woman, Imogen.”

  “I was before all this started,” she assured him earnestly. “Before I knew you.” It seemed amazing to her that there had ever been a time when she had not known him.

  “Were you? Your father was better at managing you than I am, then.” He prowled the room again, kicking the whip out of his way. “Do you think,” he demanded at last, “you can at least act the part—excepting life-threatening situations in which you feel you have to save my life?”

  She flinched at the edge in his voice, but nodded. “Yes. I promise.”

  “In public,” he added.

  “Of course,” she said, confused.

  He smiled, and at last it was a true smile. “Because I rather like my all-too-honest virago in private.”

  Imogen felt tears of happiness swell and didn’t hide them. Tentatively, hopefully, she held out a hand. He came to her and carried it to his lips. But once by her side he pushed back her scarf and Imogen remembered her appearance. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking away.

  He turned her back. “God’s blood, Imogen! Why would I care about your hair?” He pulled her into his arms, and his lips lowered to hers. She expected a fiery kiss, but it was one of tender gentleness. “I only care that I haven’t been able to protect you from all this.” His lips trailed up to touch first one eyelid and then the other. “If I’m your paladin, Ginger, then I’m an arrant failure.”

  “No, you’re not.” Imogen melted under his sensual assault. “But, oh, I love you too much. . . .”

  He carried her back onto the bed. “I fear that’s true.”

  She looked up at him and the mask was down. He was open to her again and she smiled in blissful welcome.

  He played with a tendril of her hair. “I can imagine no greater gesture of love, Ginger, than that rock to the back of the head. Because you knew the consequences, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  He began to unknot her cord girdle. She stilled his hands, not sure if he was really understanding her. “FitzRoger, I knew the consequences. And I will do it again if need be.”

  He laughed. “No you won’t, Ginger, because I, at least, learn by my mistakes. If we’re ever in a similar situation, I’ll tie you up before you get the chance.”

  Imogen at last allowed herself to surrender to happiness.

  He pulled off all three layers of her clothing in one, leaving her in only her stockings. He touched faint bruises and marks gently. “It was quite an adventure we had, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Imogen watched his expression. “What about my face?”

  He kissed her scar. “Imogen, wounds of war don’t bother me. You saved us both. I don’t forget that. I didn’t raise the matter in the hall because it would have made matters worse rather than better, but if you hadn’t acted so bravely and wisely in the passages and after, all could have been lost.”

  She began to cry with relief and happiness, and stretched up her arms. He came to her, kissing her, a kiss that turned from conscious care and comfort to unconscious need, so that they rolled together, absorbing one another.

  She tore at his clothes, and he helped. One way or the other, they were off and he was naked. She pushed away to look at him, to anxiously study his wounds like a new mother with a babe. All looked well, though there was rough scarring on his arm, and his shoulder and knee were still shadowed with bruising.

  “You still limp,” she said. “Will it get better?”

  “Yes.” His fingers trailed hungrily over her body. “You won’t believe this, but it was completely better until I tripped on a hummock while training yesterday.”

  She clucked like a worried mother. “They say you were in a killing match with Sir William.”

  “Hardly that, though I took my rage out on him. I’d failed to persuade Henry to drop the matter. As it was, I was too distracted to notice a patch of rough ground.”

  “Distracted by what?”

  “By concern for you.”

  Imogen gave him her thanks as a kiss. For the first time she noticed a scar on his lip that hadn’t been there before. Caused by Warbrick’s blow.

  She kissed it.

  She kissed each hurt, and then she couldn’t stop kissing all of him, every bit of his hard body. “I can’t believe how you frightened me at first,” she mumbled. “You seemed so hard.”

  “I wasn’t as hard then as I am now,” he teased, pushing the hardest part of his body at her.

  Imogen blushed and laughed again, light and free. He brushed the hair g
ently from her eyes. “I hope the devils haven’t come back now we’re in this room again.”

  “Oh no,” she said, but flustered. Such things were still unfamiliar, and it was broad daylight.

  “You’re bright pink and delicious. Do you want to be on top again?”

  She shook her head. “Can you . . . Can it be like it was in the monastery?” She was sure she’d gone from pink to red. “But . . . but everything?”

  He pushed her gently down and smiled at her. “I’d like that very much. My gift to you, my dear virago.”

  His clever hands explored her, finding every point of delight. His mouth accompanied his hands perfectly, summoning rich new sensations and building them, moment by moment, to her ecstasy.

  This time there was no need for restraint, and nothing to fear. This time there was no pain, though when he entered her—slowly, oh so slowly—there was an amazing fullness and she tensed.

  Imogen had closed her eyes, the better to drown in the dark pleasures he had summoned, but now she opened them to find him watching her in careful concern. “Just give it a moment, dearling. It’s only your second time, after all.”

  Imogen considered the sensation and shifted her hips around him. “It is in a way, quite pleasant,” she said. “Just strange.” She shifted again and saw him catch his breath. The feelings she was stirring in herself were thrilling, but the look on his face was more so. She began to rotate her hips.

  “By the Tomb,” he muttered, but he made no objection, and moved in counterpoint to her.

  “Oh, my,” said Imogen. “I think I’m going to . . . with you in me.”

  “Good.”

  Imogen could no longer control her movements. “FitzRoger . . .” she muttered. “I . . .”

  “It’s all right, Ginger,” he soothed. “It’s all right.” His hands and mouth continued to pleasure her, but it was their joining that was driving her wild.

  Imogen was aware of thrashing upon the bed almost as if she were fighting him, and of his mighty body skillfully restraining her so that the madness built. “FitzRoger,” she gasped. “Remember that I scream!”

  “Scream, my sweet virago. Scream the castle down.”

  And Imogen did scream when she exploded. She screamed, “Ty!”