by Karen Ranney
Of all the numerous rooms at Harrington Court, she thought, this one would always be the most special. She had knelt at his side in this room, marveled at his courage, and whispered her secret to him in Gaelic. Here she’d felt delight, wonder, envy, and jealousy. They’d begun their discovery of Juliana’s chronicle in this room and begun an idyll of another sort.
“You didn’t stay,” she said. Her hand reached out and cupped his cheek.
“I find it difficult to be in the same room with you,” he said.
She felt a spike of hurt at his words. But then his hand gripped her wrist, but not to pull her hand away. If anything, he anchored it there. The bristle of his cheek abraded her palm, her thumb brushed against his lip.
“I harden when I look at you, Anne Sinclair.”
“Do you?” She felt her cheeks warm even as the words blazed a trail of fire within her.
His eyes darkened as she watched him. She pulled away, finally.
She sat at his side, not looking at him. Instead, she concentrated upon the pattern of the intricate carving of the desk.
“What can I do to help you?” It was no secret he had spent the day preparing for the siege.
“Do what you’re doing,” he said. “Keep people’s spirits up.”
“It does not seem such a valuable task,” she said. “Not like firing a musket or cleaning a gun.”
He smiled. “Can you do either?”
“I can fire a musket, but I cannot hit anything,” she confessed. “And I know enough to tell a barrel from a priming pan. But that’s about all.”
“Then you should occupy yourself with tasks that suit you.”
“What about you? Is your task only that of commander?”
“There is little enough I can do until I receive word back from the king.” There was a look on his face as if he wished to add something, but he remained silent.
Was the situation as bleak as she suspected? Every member of the household was subdued as if bent beneath the weight of fear. Their voices were reduced to whispers, their smiles coming less often.
And in the midst of it, this perfect island. This man.
She should not have been so content.
“Even the commander must separate from the man occasionally,” he said, smiling. “A moment for himself from time to time.” It seemed to her to be a wicked smile, one deliciously so.
He pulled the codex to him. “Shall we read?” he said, and raised one eyebrow. If he knew that she had been entertaining thoughts of a more carnal nature, he didn’t show it.
He opened the book and began to read.
“‘Sebastian agreed to give the Templars what they wanted, but to do so he had to travel to the fortress of the Cathars. He was determined to leave me behind, just as I was determined to travel with him. I was his, in heart and soul, even if I could never touch him.’”
Words that rang with a curious similarity to her own thoughts.
I have seen you all my life, Stephen. I have slept on a pillow and breathed your name as I fell asleep. I have drawn your picture over and over and over again until I had your face just so. That one crease of dimple on the left side of your face, the small lines at the corners of your eyes. If she were truly filled with Sinclair courage, she would turn to him, press her fingers against his lips. She would tell him what she was. A visionary, a seeker, and perhaps a witch, after all. Because what she felt for him was some type of sorcery.
“‘I had never seen him attired in anything but his monk’s robe. But the man who stood before me in the sunlit bailey was the warrior I’d heard so much about, Sebastian of Langlinais. His armor gleamed in the sun, his tunic matched the shade of the ruby mounted in the hilt of his sword. The journey to Montvichet was one of sadness. Every step I felt as if Sebastian was growing further and further from me. I felt as if time was my enemy.’”
Another point of kinship. Too close to be comfortable.
“‘The fortress of Montvichet was a sad place, one of whispering shadows and haunting voices. The women of the fortress had been besieged, and although their suffering had been terrible, they had withstood the privations for six months. Their fate was one of great sorrow. Once at Montvichet, Sebastian showed me what he would surrender to the Templars. It was a chalice he’d been given in the Holy Land, one of gold and crimson glass. He would lead the Templars to believe that it was the Holy Grail and thereby save Langlinais.’”
Anne glanced up. There was an expression of disbelief on Stephen’s face that must mirror hers.
The cup Christ used at the Last Supper, the Holy Grail, was an object of veneration and unbelievable reverence. The Earl of Langlinais perpetrated a hoax. Not on just any group, but on the powerful Knights Templar.
Anne felt as if the breath had been stolen from her.
“Could that be true?”
“If it is, I can understand her reason for burying the codex,” Stephen said.
“But why write it at all? To put it down on paper seems a dangerous thing to do.”
He turned to the front of the codex and reread Juliana’s words. “‘My task is to impart the truth of these matters to all who come after us who would know of the true story of Langlinais Castle and the threat that stands between us and lasting peace. Would it be that such words were never read, then all that is Langlinais will remain fast and without peril.’ She and Sebastian must have known that the Templars would try to use the legend of the Grail to enforce their power.”
“Did they?”
“There have been rumors for centuries that the Templars had the Grail in their possession. But they were disbanded in 1312. Most of them put to the sword or tortured. They never posed a threat to Langlinais.”
“But they might have.”
He nodded. “Perhaps the codex was protection, in a way.”
“But it cannot be the miracle she spoke of,” she said.
“I find myself as mystified by Juliana as you.”
Anne propped her chin on her hand and leaned toward him as he continued to read.
“‘The Templars accepted the Grail as real, but they trapped Sebastian and me at the fortress of Montvichet. The ruse had succeeded in satisfying their greed but nearly cost us our lives…’”
Stephen’s voice faded, and he turned to her. “I would have sent you to safety if I’d known Penroth was so close, Anne.”
Her hand reached out of its own volition, guided not by thought but by an instinct as old as time. When her fingers rested upon his hand, he smiled. Did he realize that his smiles came more often in the last few days? As if some little-known door had been opened inside him, and they’d all begun to spill out.
Each member of the Sinclair clan had contributed to rearing her, just as they had to educating her. Each bit of life wisdom had been instilled with an accompanying bit of physical emphasis. She’d been given a tap on the head or had her ears pulled when she was not paying attention. Her hand had been squeezed and she’d been pulled into a boisterous hug for doing right or for no reason other than for being Anne. She’d been patted and kissed so many times that as a child she’d wondered if she would have the imprint of a mouth or a pair of lips permanently embedded on her cheek.
It was obvious that Stephen was not used to such gestures. When she saw him as a child, hurting, swept away by grief, she’d wanted to comfort him. Even as a girl of eight she’d wanted to hold his hand or sit beside his bed and speak to him of silly things that might make him smile.
A feeling that had only grown through the years.
He had been so much a part of her life for so long that the shadow of him lingered, even as the reality of his presence took hold. Yet that image was less formidable than this man.
He ran his fingers over the top of her hand, tracing the undulations of her knuckles. It was as if he touched her intimately. Memories of other touches intruded. A stroke upon her naked stomach with his palm. A kiss to her nipple, a press of lips against her throat. Her eyelids fluttered shut as she wa
s caught in a web of her own making. One crafted of memory and wishes.
“Anne.” A word of warning. A soft and low sound. How beautiful her name sounded when he said it.
She blinked open her eyes and smiled at him.
His eyes were dark. What was he thinking? Recalling memories as easily as she did? Of the moment she’d gasped into his mouth or clenched his shoulders so tightly that her nails had left her mark on him? She would go to sleep tonight with the thought of him and wake to the touch of his hands on her. But it would only be the sheet on her bare leg or the corner of the pillow brushing against her lips.
Wanton acts and even more wicked thoughts. No wonder the kirk preached against them. Even now the wish to be loved by him made her limbs feel heavy and the air so thick it was as if she bathed in it instead of breathed it.
With each stroke of his thumb across her flesh he divested her of a little more will. It was as if she’d discarded each restraining thought as she sat there, letting them trail down to the floor like a wafting kerchief.
Love me. The words trembled in the air between them. Held silent by the knowledge that it was not the time or the place. Do not leave me. Selfish thoughts. His world was in jeopardy. A thousand swords glinted in the distance as soldiers arranged themselves for the sole purpose of harming this man.
She admired him, even as he sat beside her, a small smile playing on his lips. All the qualities that made him so perfect in her eyes were balanced by his failings. She’d heard him shout at William for something nonsensical and not deserving of the rebuke. And growl at Betty when she would have chastised him about eating more of cook’s soup. He was occasionally impatient, a perfectionist when it came to his orders being followed. He didn’t speak easily of those things that mattered to him, but she’d come to believe that she belonged on that list.
He had a streak of fierceness that accompanied war well and a layer of compassion that did not.
But enumerating his attributes and his faults did not explain why she loved him. For that she was left to the mercy of her mind and heart. It was simply so, and she accepted it as easily as this moment.
“Is all well with you, Anne?” he asked gently.
“No,” she said. She stood and he did, also. Then she extended her arms around him, laid her cheek against his chest. “Now all is well,” she said, with a small smile.
His hands came up slowly, reached her arms, and gripped them. It was a tender touch, one that swept from wrist to elbow.
He bent his head and whispered against her cheek, the words traveling in a slow, delicious trail to her ear.
“What troubles you?”
The future.
But that, too, did not matter. Not as much as the touch of his arms around her and the solid thump of his heart.
She pulled herself back and looked into his face. There was an implacable resolve that told her he wanted an answer.
There had been too many times when she could have told him about her visions not to recognize that this was not one of them. Still, she laid the bricks in place for the wall that would be erected between them by his disbelief.
“Have you ever had something happen,” she asked him, “that changed your life?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, a half smile on his lips. “War has that effect.”
“Have you never had something occur that confused you? That you could barely believe at the same time you welcomed it?”
“I met a woman once, who knew of my childhood hiding place although no one had shown her. She spoke my name before we had met.”
He had never before mentioned these things, leading her to believe that he had forgotten. Or had not noticed.
She stepped back. Her hands fell to her sides. Her heart pounded so hard that she could barely breathe. Had the moment been forced upon her, then? The truth, spoken when it was not convenient, but when he demanded it?
A knock spared her.
“My lord?” they heard William call from the other side of the door. “Penroth’s camp is signal ing. Shall we let the messenger through?”
Stephen called out for him to enter. When he did, he answered the question, his gaze still not leaving her face. “Yes,” he said. “Give him safe passage.”
They stood for just a few moments looking at each other, a silent island in the presence of William and behind him other members of the regiment.
Then someone asked a question, and the bond was broken.
Chapter 19
“It’s all your fault, you know, that you’re trapped here,” Hannah said.
“I’m not trapped,” Richard said with some equanimity. He moved his chess piece and sat back. “I simply took advantage of Stephen’s offer and settled into a room here. After all, I had two patients to treat.”
“You might be back at your own house.”
“True enough, but how would I live without your biting wit? Your dulcet tones?”
She smiled at him. It appeared to discompose him more than her frown.
“I want to be gone from here,” she said, moving her pawn. She had no hope of winning this silly game, but it appeared to give him pleasure if she at least made the pretense of wanting to.
“Why? Have you some pressing need?”
She looked at him in amazement. “Other than ten thousand bloodthirsty troops ready to slaughter me in my bed?”
“Six thousand,” he corrected. “Can’t be more than that. Maybe a few hundred less.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You seem too calm, Richard.”
“I am quaking in my boots. However, I’d rather put on a show of courage for your sake, Hannah.”
“For my sake?”
“Indeed,” he said, smiling. “It seems to irritate you. Besides, if the truth be known, they are Parliamentarians. Surely I am safe enough.”
“I do hope they take that into account when starving us out.”
He lifted one eyebrow.
“Is that your only reason for wishing to be gone from here?”
“Cannot I simply want to be safe?”
He shook his head. “You are much too devious for that. You have a streak of cunning about you, my dear, that’s not altogether wholesome. However, I confess to wanting to be a pirate at one time, so it strikes me as altogether fascinating. Would it have something to do with Anne?”
“I am not cunning.”
“Have you never called her daughter?”
A chess piece rolled to the edge of the table, hung in the air for a long moment before clattering to the floor. She stared at him open-mouthed.
“Has no one ever commented on the resemblance?”
Numbly she shook her head.
“I am not merely speaking of appearance, my dear, but of temperament. She appears to have a stubborn bent, just as you do.”
“I am not stubborn.”
“Next you’ll tell me that you’re a fragile flower of Scotland.”
“I’m English.”
“That explains the acerbic wit. I understood the Scots to be more dour of nature.”
“How did you know, Richard?”
He did not, thankfully, pretend to misunderstand her. “When she turns her head, she looks like you. And when she smiles in a certain way. I see also, Hannah, although I hesitate to offend you by saying so, a youthful Anne in your flashes of humor.”
“No one has ever known.”
“I doubt that. Perhaps they never commented upon it.”
“There was never occasion to see us together,” she said, looking down at the table.
He sat back, all pretense of being absorbed in the game gone. “There is no reason to look so stricken, Hannah. There are too many young girls who’ve found themselves in your plight. I’ve delivered my share of babies born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“I didn’t want that for her. To be thought of that way.” She lifted her eyes. He was looking at her, a warm expression on his face. Not the revulsion she’d expected to find should anyone ever
discover that she’d been both wanton and unwise.
“What happened, Hannah?”
She said nothing for a moment. She had never told the story. How odd that it should feel right to do so now. “I fell in love with a man I could not have. A common enough tale.”
“But you are not a common woman. There must be more to it.”
She smiled, thinking that he really was possessed of a deadly charm.
“Robbie was married. A fact I did not discover until it was too late. He returned to Scotland, and I remained in England. My parents banished me when they discovered I was with child. There was no one to turn to who would welcome a woman in my condition.”
“So you traveled to Scotland.”
She glanced up, surprised. She nodded. “The journey took longer than I’d expected. I had little money and walked a good deal of the way. Every once in a while a farmer would let me ride in his wagon. But eventually, I reached Dunniwerth.”
“I imagine you were a great shock to your Robbie.”
She gave a small smile. The years had taken the sting of pain from that time.
“He was stunned to see me. So was his wife. But something good always comes from something bad. At least that’s what my grandmother always used to tell me. They had been married seven years, and Maggie had never been able to have a child.”
“So the story was put about that Anne was Maggie’s child. What was to happen to you?”
“If I wanted to stay, I was to remain on the island at Dunniwerth and become the wise woman.”
“A harsh payment.”
She shook her head. “No, not really. I had no place else to go, and this way, I could at least be near Anne. For a time after she was born, Maggie came to stay with me. It was given out that she was recovering from the birth. I nursed Anne until they found a wetnurse for her.”
She stood, folded her arms around her waist. Those days had been among the most painful of her life. She’d watched that small face and known a love like she’d never believed possible. When she’d handed Anne over to Maggie on that last day and watched her walk away from the cottage, she’d wanted to die. She’d prayed for it, in fact. But death did not come that easily. Gradually she had begun to live again. To take an interest in the world around her. It was a pleasant life, one without highs or lows. Still, there were moments that sufficed for pleasure and contentment.
