By Royal Command

by Laura Navarre

  Yet she knew the folly of that.

  “Tell me, monseigneur,” she said, flicking breadcrumbs from her lap, “about your family in Anjou. Are they landowners or merchant princes?”

  “A bit of both. We own estates well suited to viticulture, as well as shipping interests throughout the region, from Nantes to Touraine.”

  “Then you’ve interests in common with England,” she said casually. No time like the present to commit him to England. “Ethelred is expanding his enterprise to the maritime trade.”

  Rafael rose and paced to another column, where he seated himself at a distance. Reclining on the sun-warmed stone, he brooded at the sky.

  She cleared her throat. “I plan to invest my Courtenay revenue in my uncle’s shipping venture. He must pay the Danegeld somehow, and feels the venture is certain to succeed.”

  He appeared bored by the topic, hands laced behind his head and one knee bent. “No business venture is certain to succeed. I trust you won’t invest every farthing in the scheme merely because the king advises it.”

  That wasn’t encouraging, but she laughed. “I’m not so reckless. Besides, my Courtenay lands aren’t as productive as our jointure at Grayhaven.”

  “Your Courtenay lands are unproductive because the soil is poor. When your keep is restored, you should raise sheep if you wish to turn a profit. That enterprise is more likely to succeed than the other, without risking your wealth on Viking-riddled seas.”

  She strove to conceal surprise; she hadn’t expected him to know anything of her distant lands. But of course, a man of his nature would take pains to learn as much as he could. By the cross of St. Wilfrid, what else has he learned?

  “If you’d invest in a shipping venture, madame, I’ll commend you to my bailiff in Poitou. In all candor, you’re unlikely to see any profit from Ethelred’s maiden voyage into the maritime trade.”

  Silently she acknowledged the wisdom of that counsel, but personal profit was not her motive. Yet he watched her, still as held breath, a bird of prey circling on a current of air. Pressing him now would rouse his suspicions to full alert. She must take up the matter when he was more receptive.

  “Thank you.” Her fingers knotted in her lap. “I’ll think upon it.”

  Rafael lay silent, a graceful distraction, wind stirring his garments like a playful spirit. Unsettling images surfaced in her mind. She thought of rising and kneeling beside him, bending to cover his mouth with hers. She imagined him rolling with lightning swiftness to pin her beneath him.

  Burning, she wandered restlessly around the stone circle, fingers tracing the ancient pillars. Why must the man affect her so profoundly? He held her at a distance, yet every hour she spent with him, she fell deeper under his spell.

  Suddenly she sensed him behind her. She spun to find him standing too close. Retreating until she bumped the standing stone, she felt that current of shared awareness arc between them.

  “What troubles you, madame?”

  “You do,” she whispered.

  Knowing the words were better unsaid, still she couldn’t for very life contain them. They tumbled forth in a rush.

  “I gave more to you last night than I ever intended. We…did things together in that bed that were completely unsuited to man and wife. You wooed me with a lover’s passion, yet now you hold me at arms’ length. I understand your caution, but…”

  She shook her head in frustration, tears stinging her lids. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

  He stood tense before her, hands curling into fists at his sides. Then his wary reserve fractured. Roughly he pulled her against his supple length, pressing her face hard against his shoulder so she couldn’t see him.

  Choking back a sob, she turned her face into his neck and breathed the sweet smell of cloves. “By God’s own truth, Rafael, I’m falling in love with you.”

  “Don’t,” he said harshly. “I’m a man no woman should love. A slayer of men, a slave to passion, deceitful and sly as Lucifer. Damned a dozen times over—”

  “You’re mortal, nothing more.” Desperately she clung to him, fingers digging into his back. With a groan, he kissed her, searching her mouth as if seeking salvation, laying her soul bare. Trembling, she rose on tiptoe and pressed against him. His hands shifted to her hips and pulled her closer, his arousal searing her through layers of wool and linen.

  Abruptly he wrenched away. “Don’t tempt me, Katrin, or I’ll lose all restraint and take you here in the grass like a beast.”

  He grasped her shoulders to set them apart. “Do you know the penance laid upon me by our good chaplain when I confessed this wanton passion for my own wife? He charged me not to touch you for a full month, to renounce this weakness of the flesh.”

  Dismayed and mortified, she recoiled. “Sweet Jesus.”

  “And a part of me was grateful, since I knew I’d tumble back into sin at the first opportunity.”

  She was divided between humiliation that the chaplain should now be privy to the intimate details of her bed and annoyance at Rafael’s confession.

  “Monseigneur—”

  “Rafael,” he reminded her.

  By the hand, he drew her through tall grass and heather to the center of the stone circle, then glanced warily around. “The birds will warn us if anyone comes.”

  Gripping her hands, he dropped to his knees in the grass. She resisted, in no mood for wooing after what he’d told her.

  “Come down, Katrin,” he said ruefully. “There’s something I would tell you.”

  “What is it?”

  Beyond the standing stones and their tethered horses the ground fell away on all sides, so they seemed to float above the patchwork fields.

  Amusement warmed his voice. “Come down.”

  With a sigh, she knelt. He lay in the tall grass, palms pressed against the soil. Feeling the reluctant stir of curiosity—another of her besetting sins—she sank into a carpet of purple lupines.

  How strange to lie beside him, like two children hiding from lessons. The sweet-smelling grass rose up around her, shutting out everything except the sky. Pressing her palms against the cool earth, she felt the wind ripple her skirts, the sun’s warmth against her face.

  “You weren’t in my plans, Katrin of Courtenay,” he murmured. “I could have resigned myself to marriage, though it meant the end of my ambitions. But this I never intended.”

  “Nor did I.” She recalled the thundercloud of resentment and dread under which she’d ridden to Argent.

  “I suppose you’ve realized.” He stared at the sky, a subtle note of strain in his voice. “I came no virgin to the marriage bed.”

  “You said you came late to your monastery, so I thought you would have known women, before—”

  “I entered Saint-Germain-des-Prés at the age of ten, madame,” he said wryly. “What I know of women, I learned somewhat later.”

  Sensing him struggling, she held her breath, fearful any word on her part might silence him.

  “I was fifteen when I happened upon a lady, the widowed mistress of a nearby manor. She was wicked and lustful, with black hair and violet eyes, supple as a lily bending in the breeze…” He told it like a bard, like a troubadour’s lay. “I was bewitched by her, and easily persuaded to do what we both wanted, once and then again and countless times after.

  “I could tell you I was young and unschooled in the ways of love. I could tell you she was beautiful and skilled beyond reason at games of passion. I could tell you I burned in the fires of Hell, that I swore to end it the next time we met. Then I’d see her, and stammer my feeble excuses, and she’d smile and touch me and we’d tumble headlong into another sin.”

  “God and Mary…”

  “Every time I had her,” he said bitterly, “I writhed on the rack of spiritual torment, knowin
g myself unworthy of my calling. How could I preach against the weakness of the flesh when I was no more able to resist than the next man?”

  “How did it end?”

  “Oh, she married. Not that it would have stopped her, but it gave me the resolve to end it, after a full year of damning myself in her arms. Afterwards I swore an oath before God never to surrender to carnal pleasures. Of course I realized, when I assumed the barony, that I must marry and beget heirs. But that oath held for two years, madame—until the day I saw you.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Isabeau.” His grip tightened. “Today she’s the Comtesse d’Anjou.”

  You were hers for a time, but you’re mine now. Katrin knew he’d entrusted her with another of his most closely guarded secrets, something he’d never told another living soul, save perhaps his confessor. Now she held the key to him; she owned him as surely as her own soul. God grant it wouldn’t be his undoing.

  Rolling onto her side, she propped her head on her fist and studied him through a screen of violet lupines. Anger and remorse brooded in his features as he stared at the sky.

  “Now you know what drove me from your arms straight to the confessional, madame. Pray do not flog yourself for your own role. I assure you I carry sufficient guilt for both of us.”

  God help her, she loved him, beyond caution or reason. Yet he believed loving her was wickedness and depravity. So pride sealed her lips.

  He smiled in his beard and clasped her hand.

  Anger flaring, she pulled away. “Do you intend to carry out your penance?”

  When he said nothing, her fury mounted. She cast herself across his chest, gripped his tunic in her fists. “Do you?”

  “By the seventh angel.” Exasperated, he wrapped a hand behind her head to pull her down. Her heart quaked, but he held her prisoned, her breathless mouth poised above his.

  “Say my name, Katrin.”

  “Rafael,” she whispered, with the scrap of voice left to her.

  “Then nay,” he said roughly. “To the Devil with the penance, God save us.”

  The breath exploded from her lungs as he kissed her.

  Beyond their view in the tall grass, the falcon Sigrid bated and screamed. Swiftly Rafael released her and rolled to his feet. Dizzy with desire, she floundered up beside him. The excited belling of hounds drifted toward them.

  Muttering an oath, Rafael gripped his saber and strode toward their restless horses. Trepidation tightened her chest as she ran after him.

  Then a pair of lean mastiffs exploded over the hill. Borovic le Senay reined his white stallion to a plunging halt before them. Katrin looked for the straggling retinue of theyns and huntsmen that always dogged his heels. But for once, the earl was alone.

  Her uncertain gaze shifted to his features as the wind tore his shaggy hair and fluttered the blood-red tunic beneath his hauberk. He glanced over the scattered remains of their picnic and grinned, teeth showing in his silver-laced beard.

  “Good morrow!” he shouted over the hounds. “Have I interrupted a tender moment?”

  “Whistle them down,” Rafael said briefly, his attention on the bating birds. When the earl called his hounds to heel, a strained silence fell.

  “Why, what’s this?” she said with forced lightness. “Do you hunt us like foxes?”

  “Nay, only you.” Borovic’s voice deepened. She glanced up with a spurt of alarm.

  Commence the chase if you will, Katrin. Bringing you to ground will be good sport indeed.

  “I gave them your mare’s scent, so I could find you in the great outdoors.” Borovic swung down and gave his stallion an approving slap.

  Alert, Rafael watched him. “What is wrong? I can’t believe we’re missed already.”

  Borovic played out his reins, letting the stallion have his head. The horse sidled over to Arianrod, muzzle extended. The mare rolled her eyes, ears pinning flat to her head. When the earl’s hazel eyes met Katrin’s, she drew closer to her husband.

  “I’m sorry to set the hounds on you,” Borovic said to her averted face. “There’s a message from the king. I had to find you, Belmaine, wherever you’d gone.”

  A premonitory shiver slid down her spine. “What was the message?”

  “The Forkbeard’s landed with a mighty host. Ethelred has called the weapontake. A levy of able-bodied men from every shire is summoned to war.”

  Dread filled her as she stared at him.

  “This is entirely predictable.” Rafael gripped his serpent hilt. “The Danish king has rid himself of distractions at home. Now his thoughts turn to gold and conquest, like any good Viking. Yet I’d hoped for more time to finish the planting.”

  “You’ll lead our warband, of course,” Borovic said smoothly.

  Eyes hooded, Rafael said nothing.

  Unattended, the white stallion nuzzled Arianrod. The mare lunged at him with bared teeth, pulled short by her tether. Chuckling, Borovic tugged his horse away.

  “Your mare is unfriendly today, Katrin. It’ll be all I can do to assuage this big fellow’s hurt feelings.”

  “My lord,” she said impatiently, “what of the weapontake?”

  “I’ve sent riders to every village and hamlet in the shire, and called men to muster under Argent’s banner, with whatever arms and provisions they can gather. The warband must ride in three days’ time.”

  “We’d better go in two,” Rafael said absently, as though counting something inside his head. “Sweyn Forkbeard will not wait politely for Ethelred’s army to muster before he begins his raiding.”

  “Brother, you’ve no experience leading men in battle,” Borovic said, indulgent, bending to scrub a panting hound. “If you rush off to war like a green boy, you’ll ride with no provisions, and your men will go hungry.”

  “Just so.” Rafael loosed his black Ajax and tossed his reins over the glossy neck. “I’ve been planning for this. With your help and my lady’s, this warband stands a chance of reaching the battlefield before the fighting is done.”

  Katrin kept a firm hand on her bridle as Arianrod cast a hostile eye at Borovic’s stallion. Both men started forward to help her mount, but the earl halted at his brother’s narrow look.

  Mounted, they jogged downhill, hounds bounding around them.

  “I hope you’ll spare a man from the weapontake,” she said, “to restore my Courtenay defense. With the Vikings raging, ’tis all the more vital to close the gap in the Danelaw wall.”

  Borovic slapped his reins against a muscled thigh. “Belmaine needs all my seasoned captains on the battlefield. And some must remain here, to defend against a thrust from the coast. The matter will have to wait until Ethelred trounces the Forkbeard, and my brother returns.”

  She could hardly gainsay him, knowing nothing of what Rafael would face in battle. “Very well, but I pray you’ll bend your thoughts upon it. It’s best to act before the weather turns, and that happens early in the north.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, sweeting,” Borovic said, good-natured, with a sly glance toward his brother. “Pity you don’t know which knight is your foxy paladin. Belike the man could be some help in this affair. At least he could advise you, since he appears to have the battle-savvy you lack.”

  “I’ll have my Anjou knights and other seasoned captains, so I won’t be lacking in counsel.”

  “Your Black Fox rose above his place yesterday,” Borovic said idly, “to challenge me on the tourney field.”

  “Marry, brother, I seem to recall it was you who challenged him.”

  “Well, he hadn’t my leave to quit the field either,” the earl growled. “After presuming to ride against me, it was my place to say when the contest ended—which it hasn’t.”

  “Verily, brother, if he’s given you offense, I must beg your pardon on his
behalf.”

  “Who is the man?” Borovic demanded, voice rising with frustration. “Tell me his name, and all’s forgiven.”

  “I humbly beg your pardon, but I cannot.”

  “Cannot, or will not?”

  Katrin saw ruddy color rising beneath the earl’s skin and intervened with a laugh. “Likely he’s too terrified of you now to come forth, my liege. ’Twas nothing short of a revelation seeing you in battle. You’d show true mercy if you let him keep his disguise. For all men know you as a man of honor.”

  She’d been so obsequious that she almost laughed in disbelief when she saw it working, tension easing from Borovic’s clenched jaw.

  “Why then,” he said, smiling, “I’ll leave it, if you ask me.”

  “I do ask,” she assured him, not daring to look at Rafael.

  “If by God’s grace my poor talents impressed you,” Borovic said, “perhaps next time you’ll honor me with your favor, rather than the Black Fox…since my brother refuses to take the field.”

  “La, I shall think on it.” She turned her face forward. “Surely you prefer your own lady’s favor.”

  “Katrin—” he began, but she was bending to loosen Sigrid’s jesses, transferring the falcon to her gauntleted wrist, then sending her aloft with a practiced toss. Slanting a glance over her shoulder at the brothers, she addressed the air between them.

  “Since time is of the essence, my lords, I challenge you in a race to the castle. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, you’ll both be eating Arianrod’s dust.” She clapped her heels to the mare.

  Gwyneth will scold me for this until she turns the air blue. But the spark of mischief faded before the alarming prospect of a summer spent alone at Caerwyne, doggedly deflecting Borovic’s advances.

  And deflect him I must, she thought bleakly, urging Arianrod with lifted voice—as though she could outrace her troubles.

  Chapter Twenty-Two