by Jo Beverley
Madeleine was poised for flight, but something held her back. She knew, however, it could be dangerous to tell him she was Madeleine de la Haute Vironge. “Dorothy,” she said.
“Don’t run away, Dorothy. I won’t hurt you.”
Madeleine relaxed under the influence of the same soft, soothing voice. It was him. And there was something else reassuring. Something in his smile . . .
She realized it was his teeth. They were white and even, unlikely in a ragged peasant.
She smiled. He was in disguise. He was her faery prince, doubtless an English noble, traveling incognito. Once she’d framed this thought, it was amazingly easy to see through the dirt and rags to the handsome face, the powerful body, and the golden hair. He had startling green eyes, she discovered, which crinkled entrancingly when he smiled.
“I’m Edwald,” he said. She knew it was a lie but understood.
“How is it you know French?” She made each word clear and separate. She knew how hard it was to understand a foreign tongue when spoken quickly.
“I’ve traveled to France.”
That argued high birth. Perhaps he was one of the sons of Harold who were trying to avenge their father. But in that case she would expect his French to be more elegant.
He spoke again. “Do you make a habit of wandering the woods alone, Dorothy?”
Madeleine glanced back down the stream. The real Dorothy was just visible, the guard just out of sight. “I have friends nearby.” It was a warning as well as information.
He followed her gaze, then took her hand to draw her away from the stream and behind a thicket. Heart pounding, Madeleine knew she should run. If he tried to stop her she should scream. She did neither.
He rested his hands on her shoulders and smiled down at her. His eyes really were very attractive. “I wanted to see you properly,” he said.
The darkened skin and greasy hair muddied her vision. “I wish I could see you properly, too.”
Danger flashed in his eyes, but then he laughed and shook his head. “How have you survived in this harsh world, Dorothy? Don’t worry. I won’t harm you even if you do hold my life in your hands.”
He gathered her hands together and dropped kisses into her palms, tickling them with warm breath that stirred something hotter inside her, something she recognized as forbidden. Her conscience made her pull away, but when he tightened his hold to stop her, she did not persist.
His hands slid along her bare forearms, and inside the loose sleeves of her kirtle to her shoulders, rough skin and callouses against her smoothness. “Your skin is like the finest silk,” he murmured. “You must know, though, my sweet Dorothy, that I cannot see you after today.”
No one had ever touched her so intimately, and she was softening like wax on a hearth. “Why not?” she breathed.
“How can I risk it? You would know me for an outlaw and tell your king.”
“No,” said Madeleine with certainty, “I wouldn’t.”
His thumbs rubbed against her collarbones. “You should. It would be your duty.”
But they blinded traitors and rebels, or gelded them, or lopped off hands and feet, Madeleine thought, shivering. “No, I promise. I will never betray you.”
He freed his hands of her sleeves and drew her close against his hard body. Her conscience cried the alarm. This was wrong. She should run. Now.
But surely she could stay just a little longer. It was honey-sweet to be in his arms.
Greatly daring, she raised her hands to his broad shoulders, remembering them wet and beautiful in the sun. Her right hand found bare flesh at the nape of his neck and she cherished it, her fingers seeking the top of the valley of his spine.
“Ah, my beautiful wanton . . .” His lips touched hers as softly as a kiss of peace, but this kiss brought turmoil, and her conscience gained control.
She snatched her hands away and used them to push instead. “I mustn’t!”
Laughter sparked in his eyes. “Mustn’t you?” He loosened his arms. “Then fly, little bird. I won’t stop you.”
Contrarily, his words allowed her to muffle the alarm bells in her mind. He wouldn’t hold her against her will, and she wanted to be kissed. No more than that, just a kiss.
Gathering her courage, she touched her lips to his. He laughed and dropped kisses on her nose, and cheeks, and chin. Madeleine did not want to reveal her ignorance so she copied him. She showered his face with little kisses.
He murmured approvingly and guided her lips to his, this time with a hand firmly cupping the back of her head. His tongue came out to lick her lips.
Madeleine was startled, but she resolutely did the same. Her tongue met his, mobile and warm. His mouth opened, her mouth opened, his tongue entered to play.
Madeleine gave a little moan and stopped thinking. Her body hummed, and she leaned against his wonderful chest, strong as an oak, warm as a fire-stone. His hand on her breast turned her legs to jelly. She collapsed completely against his mighty arm. He moved back and sat on a rock, pulling her onto his lap.
“Yes, darling, yes,” he murmured in English.
Madeleine regained a scrap of sense and realized she’d had her kiss. It really was time to stop . . .
His mouth found her right breast. Madeleine stopped thinking again. His hands and mouth tormented her, and her body developed a mind of its own. Her hips turned to move against him. She closed her eyes.
Heat. Ache. There was a piercing ache between her legs, covered suddenly by his hand. She moaned and moved against him, then stilled as she realized what was happening.
“No!” she cried and pulled away.
His hand clapped over her mouth. An arm like iron imprisoned her. She squirmed and kicked. “For Christ’s sake, stay still!” he hissed.
She obeyed because she was helpless against his strength. She was panting and shivering as if with an ague. He wasn’t in a much better state.
His hand eased off her mouth. “Let me go,” she whispered. “Please let me go.”
She felt a shudder pass through him. “By the Virgin’s milk, what’s the matter?”
A fine sheen of sweat covered his skin, and his eyes were more black than green. He shifted slightly, and she felt his hard member against her thigh and jumped with fright. She pushed on his chest. “Let me up! Let me up! This is wickedness!”
He stared at her and muttered something hot and angry in English. Then in French he asked tightly, “Are you by any chance a virgin?”
Feeling as if she were accused of the blackest sin, Madeleine nodded.
Slowly he released her and stood. His breathing was deep and unsteady. “How,” he said, “did a bold armful like you remain a virgin at your age? What are you? Eighteen?”
“Seventeen.” Madeleine pulled her skirts down and tugged at her bodice. He’d had her half naked. She ventured a glance at him. Lord, he was angry. He looked as if he were going to beat her, and for being a virgin still. “I’m sorry,” she said, then giggled nervously at the absurdity of it.
If he was angry, so was her body, screaming that it had been deprived of something it had been promised. She hurt. She wrapped her arms around herself.
He sighed and shook his head. “It was a hard day when I met you, Dorothy. Go on back to your friends and take a lesson from this.”
She didn’t like to part from him in anger. “I only wanted a kiss,” she said wistfully.
He gave a laugh that sounded almost genuine. “Well you certainly had that. Go on. Go, or I might think better of my noble impulse.”
Madeleine took a step away, and then came back in spite of his forbidding look. “It was a very nice kiss,” she said softly, and reached up to brush her lips against his. Then, having some sense left, she fled.
Aimery watched her in bemusement, then rubbed his hands over his sweat-damp face. That little encounter had been intended to exorcise her effect on him and leave him at peace. Now he wondered if he’d ever have peace again. His body hurt, and his mind was tied i
n knots.
If she really was a virgin, she was wasting a natural talent. He’d lost his head as soon as he touched her. What a pleasure it would be to show such a fiery piece all the wonders of her delightful body, but he wasn’t risking another encounter like this one. He’d be a wreck before Midsummer Day. The only solution was to put as much distance as possible between them. He began to climb the slope. A two-day walk to Banbury was just what he needed.
Madeleine stopped her flight by the stream to catch her breath. She looked back but could not see him. She had the strangest desire to retrace her steps . . . She shook her head. She knew what a lucky escape she’d had. If she wasn’t a virgin when she married, she’d never be honored by her husband. She could be rejected, beaten, imprisoned . . .
She shuddered. It was madness, but just now being with him almost seemed worth whatever came afterward.
She checked her appearance, sure her wickedness would be written there. Her gown was straight and decent but, oh Lord, there were two wet circles over her breasts where his mouth had been.
The dizzy heat swept over her at the memory, and she pressed her hands against the aching nipples.
“Lady Madeleine!”
Madeleine saw her guard trotting toward her. She looked down at her telltale gown. With a little laugh, she tipped herself forward into the shallow stream.
“Lady Madeleine!” The man splashed over to her. “Are you all right? I thought I heard something.”
Madeleine pushed herself up, soaking wet. “I’m fine. I just tripped.”
“But earlier? I heard a cry.”
“Oh, that. I thought I saw a snake.” Madeleine allowed him to help her over to the other side of the stream. “You are slow to respond, though. That was ages ago.”
“No, it weren’t,” the man protested. “ ’Tweren’t more than a few minutes. Dorothy and I just wondered as to whether we’d heard anything, and then I came find you. You shouldn’t go out of sight, my lady . . .”
Madeleine felt as if she had been gone from the real world for hours, days even, not just minutes. She was not at all sure she was back yet, or ever would be. As the guard shepherded her back toward Dorothy, Madeleine cast one wistful look back at the thicket by the stream.
Chapter 2
A long day of walking brought Aimery a night of deep sleep. When he awoke the next day, the encounter with Dorothy seemed to be a dream. It was just as well he didn’t need to return to Baddersley, though. The wench was dangerous.
Ten miles from Banbury, Aimery and Gyrth heard rumors of the enslavement. The culprit was Robert d’Oilly, which hardly surprised Aimery. D’Oilly was a coarse French mercenary—a vicious and effective fighter without any other virtue. It was a tragedy William had had to use such as he to win England, and now thought fit to reward him with land.
Aimery and Gyrth soon fell in with a group of men walking to Banbury market. It was easy enough to get them talking.
“Took my sister’s nephew. Just like that. He’d done nothing wrong.”
“Hear tell the priest over Marthwait tried to stop ’em and they broke his head. Still ain’t recovered his wits. Bloody Normans. Bastards, every one of ’em.”
“Who’s overlord?” asked Aimery in the same rough tongue the villagers were using.
One spat. “Should be Earl of Wessex, but they up and killed him at Hastings, didn’t they? Now there’s none but the bloody king, and a fat lot of use it’d be complaining to him.”
“Worth a try, though,” said Aimery. They looked at him as if he were half-witted.
“Tell you what,” said one man sarcastically. “Why don’t you stick around the next time the Bastard king happens to be riding by, then you can tell him. And get kicked in the face.”
Aimery put an edge of authority in his voice. “I know what I’m talking about. I’m an outlaw, but I know William of Normandy has no love for slavery. If you can get word to him, he’ll put a stop to it.”
“He’d turn against Norman for Englishmen?” one man scoffed.
“He’ll enforce the law.”
“What about our women?” cried one young man. “Those guards take what they want and none dares stop them. My sister . . .” He turned away, his face working.
“Rape is against the law, too,” Aimery said firmly.
The thunder of hooves shut off the talk. The villagers bolted for the woods even as a troop of horsemen swung around the bend and bore down on them. In moments they were surrounded, and none had escaped.
It was d’Oilly’s men on the hunt for more forced workers. Aimery cursed his luck. There were five horsemen, but they had a slovenly look which suggested he and Gyrth could take them with even minimal help from the villagers. But violence only ever brought retaliation on the ordinary people. Instead he worked at avoiding attention.
It wasn’t easy. He was half a head taller than the tallest villager and much better built. He slouched and nudged Gyrth. Gyrth got the message, and Aimery hoped the others would play along.
One of the soldiers unhooked an ox-whip from his saddle. “Well,” he said in French, “we’ve found a likely lot here.” He changed to clumsy English. “Lord d’Oilly has need of laborers. You, you, you, and you.” He pointed to the youngest and strongest, including Aimery but not Gyrth.
Gyrth instantly spoke up in English. “Sir, my cousin here is . . .” He tapped eloquently on his head. “He can be no use to you.”
“He’s strong. You come, too.”
Within seconds the chosen ones were cut out of the group. One man resisted. “You can’t do this! You have no right. I am a free man—” The whip cracked over his head and he fell silent.
The five prisoners were herded a mile or so to the river where a bridge was being built to ease access to Robert d’Oilly’s new castle. A dozen men were working there, some of them already exhausted. Aimery suspected more slaves were among the workers to be seen assembling the wooden keep on the raw motte, or hill, in the distance.
Two of the villagers were added to the men loosening rocks from the bottom of an escarpment; Aimery and another were ordered to join the weary line carrying the rocks down to the bridge. Because of his greater age, Gyrth was put to work there laying the rocks in place.
As the day passed they were offered no rest or refreshment, though the guards let them scoop water from the river to drink. The five guards slouched in the shade, cracking a whip if they thought any of their slaves were idling. They shared a wineskin and, at one point, some meat pies.
They frequently shouted comments in French which alarmed the peasants, but they were invariably just scatological insults, pointless because they must assume none of their victims understood.
Aimery understood, however, and anger grew in him. These men were the scum of the earth, mercenaries brought to England by the lure of easy pickings. The urge, the need, to obliterate them was a hunger in him far greater than the pangs of his empty stomach. He kept telling himself that violence here would destroy his chance to do greater good later, and would bring harsh retribution on the local people, but it grew harder and harder to pay attention to logic.
He hauled a leather sling of stones onto his bruised shoulders and shambled down to the river. As he passed one pot-bellied guard, the man shouted, “Hey, big boy! Bet you’ve got an enormous one. Bet you stick it in your mother!” Aimery pretended to be deaf. He tried to ease his fury with anticipation of the king’s reaction when he heard of this injustice, but he could taste the pleasure he’d get from slitting the man’s throat.
As Aimery slouched back up the hill for another load, the man in front of him stumbled. Aimery helped him up. The closest guard sneered but made no objection. The worker’s breathing was labored, his eyes glassy.
“He needs rest, lord,” Aimery mumbled.
“No rest,” said the guard, and aimed the wineskin at his mouth.
Aimery helped the peasant fill his sling with rocks, putting in as few as he dared. It was a mercy they were hauling the h
eavy weight downhill, but he doubted this man would last much longer. What would happen when he failed? If the guards had any sense, they’d take some care of their beasts of burden, but scum have no brains. They probably thought there was a never-ending supply of slaves.
They set off back down the hill, the man began to weave. Aimery did his best to help, going in front and guiding him, but suddenly the peasant stumbled and fell to his hands and knees, his head hanging like the exhausted beast of burden he’d become.
The pot-bellied guard stirred himself to his feet and cracked his whip. “Up, you misbegotten swine. Up!” The man twitched but slumped down again.
Even as Aimery dropped his sling of rocks and ran to help, the whip cracked again and bit. The peasant twitched and gave a guttural cry, but even the pain couldn’t move him. The whip whistled and cut again before Aimery reached him.
“Out of the way, dolt!” snarled the guard in French, moving closer, “or there’ll be more of the same for you.” He switched to English. “Move!”
Aimery turned to face the brute, whose heavy paunch and slack face revealed he was poorly trained and exercised. “Mercy, lord,” he said in French.
“An honest word from a worm like you?” The guard jerked his thumb eloquently. “Scat!”
Aimery rose slowly as if befuddled. The guard paid him no more attention and swung his whip back with relish.
Aimery leaped. With an arm round the man’s throat and a knee in his back, he broke his neck. As the man fell, Aimery whipped the sword from his scabbard, grimacing at the clumsy feel of it and the old blood and rust marring the blade. He kicked the body out of the way—scum, as he’d thought—and turned to face the first of the four other guards. He deliberately shambled and held the sword as if he had no idea what to do with it.
A glance showed him Gyrth leaping onto a guard and the peasants standing around terrified. “Don’t let them escape!” he shouted.
“They ain’t going to help you, pig’s swill,” sneered the nearest guard, thinner but still with the belly of self-indulgence. He showed a scant collection of yellow and black teeth. “And I ain’t going to kill you quickly. Not quickly at all . . .”
