The Knight's Return

by Joanne Rock

  He slid an arm about her back, keeping her upright. His other hand landed lightly on the side of her face, tilting her chin up so that she could see only him.

  As if she absorbed some of his strength, she felt strangely improved. The ground beneath her steadied. All at once, her vision focused.

  Her senses became sharply attuned to his closeness. The clean scent of his soap. The heat of his skin wherever he touched her. The slight pressure of those touches somehow urged her near. Or was that a fanciful imagining? The air constricted in her chest until she had to take shallow breaths around that tingling knot of intense awareness.

  “I am fine,” she protested, though the weakness in her voice suggested otherwise. Clearing her throat, she attempted to regain control before she did something untoward like … dissolve into the compelling strength of a stalwart knight. “Truly, it was the thought of being mistaken about Edward’s death that made me uneasy, not any pain from my temple.”

  With an effort, she straightened, drawing herself away from temptations she couldn’t afford.

  “It is a natural enough conclusion, unless you saw proof of his demise.” He eased away from her slowly, as if afraid releasing her too soon would topple her from her seat.

  “I have the word of my groom, Eamon.” She peered back toward the tree line to see any signs of his return. “We will speak to him at once.”

  Then she would put to rest this new uneasiness that she had been betrayed even more deeply than she originally thought. Hugh’s presence might unleash unwieldy desires inside her, but she would not allow him to resurrect demons from her past when she needed to carve out a future for her and her son.

  Chapter Seven

  “Curse your eyes, Bartlett. You have all the subtlety of an aging whore.” Eamon might not have cared about the oafish attack on Lady Sorcha if Hugh Fitz Henry had not been present. But the astute Norman changed everything.

  Eamon could not relax his guardianship of the princess if he hoped to maintain his newly elevated status with Tiernan Con Connacht. For that reason, he was not pleased to meet an old acquaintance in the forest.

  “What of it?” Gregory Bartlett was a bowlegged clerk who had risen from duties as a lowly tax collector to become one of Edward du Bois’s most trusted servants.

  Eamon had met him the year before when du Bois had been in Connacht trying to cause trouble among the Irish kings in the hope of usurping power for a greedy band of English barons. Eamon had been glad to earn some extra coin by helping Gregory and Edward du Bois deceive Sorcha into marriage, but back then, Eamon had only been a groom with little to lose. Now, if anyone from Connacht discovered his treachery, he would sorely regret his rising position. Something he did not think the Normans would match for his service.

  Bartlett sat astride a fat donkey now, his mount poised for eating instead of taking flight through the woods, no matter that the rider had just committed a crime by throwing a rock at the princess.

  Eamon had not expected to see Bartlett again after the man paid him to lie about Edward du Bois’s death. But the clerk had reappeared in the woods near Sorcha’s cottage a few days earlier and hinted that they might have further need of Eamon’s services. And while he craved the extra money, he could not risk his faithlessness being discovered.

  “You will arouse notice from Lady Sorcha’s new protector.” Eamon planned to spin out his knowledge by slow degrees in case there was coin to be made for the quantity of what he offered.

  He’d volunteered to search the woods for the princess’s attacker just in case du Bois’s men had been at the bottom of this. But in truth, he’d been protecting himself as much as du Bois since Eamon would not give up his new position as one of Sorcha’s guardians. If Hugh Fitz Henry had discovered Bartlett in the forest, there was a chance he might have talked. Eamon would not allow anyone to discover his part in betraying the royal family of Connacht.

  “She is to wed?” Gregory asked, shifting his portly form on the donkey in a flap of dark robes and weathered sandals.

  Eamon arched an eyebrow.

  “You do not think I will sell out my lady without good cause, I hope.”

  “You are more addlewitted than I remember if you think I will place a single coin into your hand without some assurances of your loyalty.” Gregory shook his head, dislodging the hood pulled over his bald pate. “You are as guilty as I am of deceiving the princess. Perhaps you should pay me for my silence.”

  Eamon stepped back, abhorring the thought that he could lose his position because he’d been outplayed by a lying money handler who thought nothing of harming a woman. He stumbled over a tree root and quickly righted himself.

  “Why have you returned?” Eamon asked, suddenly afraid for his own neck. Had the false-faced clerk come back to tell Lady Sorcha the truth? “You did not tell me anything of substance the last time we met, evading my question at every turn. But I want to know what du Bois’s presence in Connacht means.”

  “Relax, groom.” The clerk dismissed his concerns with a wave of a fat, beringed hand. “I am only here to report news of Connacht to my lord. Is it true the princess bore a child from the union with du Bois?”

  Eamon wondered how he could fall so quickly from thinking himself ahead of the game to discovering he had been greatly outdone. Worry crept up his back and crawled along his shoulders. He had his ma and three sisters to support since his da died last winter. He could not afford to lose his new rank with the Irish king any more than he could afford to upset du Bois’s men.

  “Aye. A boy.” A child born to privilege even as an exile and a bastard. With a powerful knight for a father and a king for a grandfather, the whelp would never know the hardship of sleeping on a dirt floor in winter as icicles formed beneath your nose. Young Conn would never toil all summer only to have the blight wipe out his crop or a woodland beast devour the fruits of his labor.

  Eamon had been poor and a bastard besides—reviled by the stepfather who raised him with his half sisters.

  “We can be sure the child is Edward’s?” Bartlett pressed as the strains of music from the fair floated on the spring breeze.

  Eamon bristled on Lady Sorcha’s behalf.

  “The princess cried for the loss of du Bois many days after his death.” Eamon knew she shed many more tears over the loss of love than she’d spared for the exile most women would have despaired. “She has not let a soul close to her since your lord’s departure—”

  “You mean his death?” Bartlett grinned, displaying a mouthful of missing teeth.

  “Aye,” Eamon corrected himself. He’d sworn to Sorcha that he’d seen du Bois’s lifeless body, even though he’d known full well that both the clerk and the lying lord had left Ireland after the skirmish that was supposed to have killed du Bois.

  “Then I have a great deal to report to my lord.” Bartlett lifted the donkey’s reins and tugged the lazy creature toward the south. “He is involved in a campaign not far from here and may wish to retrieve his heir. Then again—he may prefer to ensure his future bloodline remains untainted by a youthful indiscretion.”

  Eamon sucked in air, surprised at what the man suggested.

  “In either case,” the clerk continued, “we may require assistance with the boy and with the new man she sees. At that point I feel certain we could find an equitable arrangement. As I recall, you have many who are dependent upon you.”

  Bartlett’s narrowed eyes communicated darkness Eamon had not perceived the previous year when he’d been quick to do the man’s bidding. Not that he really had a choice. But any man who could harm a child so that some worthless lord’s bloodline remained “untainted” was surely the most soulless of men.

  “I am at your command,” Eamon promised, wishing he’d never chased down the person responsible for throwing a rock at the princess.

  In an effort to impress Onora and keep his secrets, he’d placed himself in an untenable position. Now, he also had a long absence to explain to Hugh Fitz Henry. Turning o
n his heel, he vowed to quickly round up every child who’d played a game on the fair’s hillside that morn. He would question them all even though he’d already seen the real culprit. He needed the children’s help to adequately account for all the lost time since he’d departed the princess’s side.

  Hugh strode past the tents as the sun set on the feast day without a word in private to Sorcha’s groom.

  The lad had sought out all the players of the game on the hillside in the hope one of them might have seen who had thrown a rock in Sorcha’s direction. But no amount of questioning had yielded answers. Hugh had left Sorcha in her sister’s care by the bonfires where the minstrels played and the dancers whirled while he awaited Eamon to finish his task with the last youth. Sidestepping a silk trader whose cart was full of more ribbons and trim than actual cloth, Hugh attracted the attention of two maids scuttling past, their heads bent in giggling conversation. Or at least they were until they spied Hugh.

  One gasped. The other tripped. Each clutched the other.

  “Ladies.” Hugh nodded a greeting, curious about their reaction. “Have we met?”

  “No, but it is never too late,” the one spoke up, her white cap sliding sideways on her tousled dark hair. “We can entertain ye for as long as you please. We have a hidden spot awash in soft leaves within yonder trees.”

  The plump maid—not more than eighteen summers—jerked a thumb toward the place she had in mind. Her friend, a bony blonde with ample hips and a fresh grass stain on her skirt, nodded her encouragement.

  “No, thank you.” He knew it was not in his nature to rut with one so young, no matter how freely she offered herself. “I only thought you—”

  He shook his head, cutting himself off. Apparently he’d misinterpreted the looks they’d given him.

  He wondered how long it had been since he’d known a woman.

  “Never mind,” he told them, wrenching his attention away from them. Their eagerness did not tempt him half so much as the red-haired princess who was as cagey as she was spirited. “Good eve, ladies.”

  With another nod, he stalked past them, eager to settle the matter of Conn’s father with Sorcha. And for that, he required the groom.

  “Eamon.” He interrupted him at last, impatient with his thorough questioning of boys hardly old enough to wield a rock with enough force required to fell a grown woman. “A word please?”

  Reluctantly, the ambitious groom dismissed the last boy. Hugh had asked the king about Eamon and discovered the young man had been enticed into service with the promise of a spot guarding the keep’s walls and—perhaps—a chance to prove himself on the battlefield when the Normans came. Something inside Hugh had recoiled at the thought of such a promise to someone untrained in the use of arms. It was one thing to give a laborer the chance to put his natural strength to more challenging use. It was another to place him in a role that required skill and lifelong training to succeed.

  Hugh vowed to help the younger man himself, unable to stomach the thought of turning an overeager man out onto a killing field with no notion of weaponry.

  Eamon could shape a future for himself even as Hugh did.

  “Aye?” Eamon joined him outside the empty tent.

  All the tents were clearing out as fair attendants proceeded to the bonfires for drinking and entertainment. Watered wine and mead flowed with abandon from the king’s storehouse, although the sovereign himself had yet to appear at Erasmus’s feast day. The villagers toasted their lord in his absence, all the while whispering among themselves that he’d denied them his presence because of Sorcha’s attendance. Sorcha had overheard the rumors and did not try to contradict them. She had not been mistreated after the incident with the rock, but neither had she been welcomed into the fold with open arms by her former people.

  “If you would attend the princess by the bonfire, we would like to speak with you.” Hugh pointed the way past the tents and stepped into the flow of tardy villagers heading to the celebration.

  Even from this far away, Hugh could hear the strains of lute and tambourine music that signaled the start of a dance. Would he remember the steps of a round to perform with Sorcha?

  The question brought to mind a memory of music in a quiet pasture played by children and an idle nurse. The scene in his head involved no great hall, but the most rural of settings for a forbidden pastime.

  As quickly as the vision had come to him, it dissipated, leaving Hugh with the worry that he was not the highborn knight he imagined but some lowly farmer’s son with dreams and ambitions like Eamon’s. Had Hugh been raised in the back halls and pastures of some rich lord’s keep? Could he have learned his knightly skills by imitation and not training?

  “Did you reveal my true purpose to Lady Sorcha?” Eamon asked, ignoring the straggling villagers who sought to capture his attention.

  Hugh blinked away his unsettling thoughts, his focus slowly returning to the present. “Of course not.” He could not compromise Eamon’s purpose without implicating himself. And the more he spoke to Sorcha, the more he became convinced she would not appreciate being deceived.

  She’d surely been fed more than her share of lies.

  “Then what—” Eamon’s words were cut off by Onora.

  “Here we are!” she shouted over the music, waving her arms at one end of three bonfires in a row.

  Hugh hastened his pace toward the women, eager for answers that Sorcha had a right to hear directly. He had the impression that her father had not pursued enough of the truth a year ago where Sorcha was concerned, and it seemed he’d owed his daughter better than fury and exile.

  But then, Hugh sensed a tender place in his heart growing for the fierce princess who’d once thought to protect her son with a small blade and a large share of maternal determination. He could not help but admire a woman who had forged a life for herself with no help from her family. For his part, his brain felt more fractured every day that he found no family. No name. No roots or a past to claim as his own.

  Hugh watched her now, her hands clasping her sister’s as Onora swept her up into a dance. Sorcha shook her head to deny her laughing partner, but Onora spun her about anyhow and Sorcha’s feet found the steps with remembered rhythm, her natural grace apparent in every move.

  The bonfire bathed her in bright, warm light, the flames adding a flush to her cheeks. His gaze slid down her blue surcoat, the rich shade of the dye fading at the seams and at the neck where it hugged her high, full breasts. Her long auburn hair swished against her back as she spun, the breeze catching her veils and revealing the lush hue of her curls.

  “The bards say their mother was just as beautiful,” Eamon offered suddenly and Hugh realized he had been caught staring.

  Then again, Eamon’s gaze seemed to be firmly glued to Sorcha as well. A fact that roused a level of fury in Hugh he could not have anticipated. He thought to warn Eamon of the fruitless pursuit of a woman so far above him in station, when the younger man spoke once more.

  “They say Onora shares her mother’s dark hair.” Eamon’s gaze lingered on the other noblewoman who twirled Sorcha about. “Although I have heard that Tiernan’s lady wife had eyes more like her elder daughter.”

  Still, Eamon’s glance did not leave Onora. And while it might be foolhardy to hunger for a lady who could never return his feelings, Hugh did not feel so compelled to interfere now that he knew where the other man’s interests lay.

  “Eamon.” Sorcha paused her dancing steps, her face losing its laughing lines as she waved the men closer. “Thank you for attending me.”

  Hugh wished they could retreat for greater privacy, but most of the assembly’s focus remained on the dancers and the music. They would be safe enough to speak here, in the shadows beyond the reach of the firelight, as long as they kept their voices down.

  “You called for your groom?” Onora asked, peering about. “What need have you of a horse? I thought you would stay with me until the moon rises high.”

  Sorcha grabbed
her sister’s arm and spoke low into her ear until Onora nodded, seeming to understand the need for discretion. Her eyes found Eamon and narrowed, as if searching out the truth of answers before she’d asked any questions.

  “Let us move out of the way of the dancers,” Hugh suggested, taking Sorcha by the arm to guide her around a swath of fragrant smoke from the fire.

  “Your questions must be of a serious nature,” Eamon observed in a tone Hugh did not quite fathom.

  But then, perhaps a man raised up from a low station was never fully comfortable in his new seat. Nervousness played out in his hasty step as he joined them.

  “We were discussing the people who might wish to harm Sorcha earlier,” Hugh informed him, ready for answers. “And wanted to ask you about the last time you saw Conn’s father.”

  Sorcha gripped her sister’s hand, unprepared for Hugh’s direct launch into the heart of the discussion. She had been thinking about that fateful winter when her false husband died ever since Hugh raised the question about Edward.

  Sorcha’s father had been on a campaign in the south where the Irish kings had been fighting for power after the death of the High King. All of her father’s best men had attended him in the battle, leaving Sorcha guarded only by an aging nurse, a doting steward and a handful of the youngest knights, many of whom had been playmates of hers since childhood. Slipping from the keep to the village and then outside the town walls had never proven a problem. Especially with the enticement of Edward, who had rescued her from a band of forest outlaws. She’d trusted him so easily, but then, he’d protected her honor when it would have been easy for him to take her innocence as reward for dispatching her attackers. Instead, he’d wooed her for weeks while her father was away, always proving himself a gentleman when she’d bestowed ardent kisses upon him.

  Instead, he’d asked for her hand after the waning and waxing of a moon cycle. He’d imposed upon a cleric whom she thought was known to Edward. Only after Edward’s untimely death did she discover the priest was not listed in any church’s records as a man of God. The vows she’d taken under the stars with the deer and hares as witnesses had turned out to be as false as her marriage. What had always troubled her was the role Edward had played. Had he understood the full extent of his friend’s deception?