The Protector

by Madeline Hunter

  “From the abbey? Did you live there from girlhood?”

  “Nay, only four years. When my father went to fight in the duke's cause, he put me there for safety. One of his vassals gave a home to Catherine, my sister, but I was not welcome. I did not like the abbey at first, but I found contentment there.”

  “Ascanio says that you will go back. That you will take vows.”

  “Aye.”

  “Why?”

  She looked away and did not answer at once. He sensed vulnerability in her, and was pleased to find it. “I belong there. There is no place for me in the world outside of there,” she finally said.

  “There is here. With your people.”

  “There is no place for me here. I won't marry and I do not like women's things. You kindly call me unusual. My people think that I am unnatural.”

  “They think that you are super natural.”

  “It is the same thing. Today I am a saint. Next year the crops fail and I am a witch. It is a thin line that I walk through no choice of my own.”

  She abruptly rose and fetched the box she had brought. “Your meal is done? Then let us play draughts.”

  He poured more wine while she set out the pieces. He had expected a desperate night, but the shadow of death had been banished by this woman's presence and the strange bond he felt with her. He made his first move and watched as she considered her own.

  He had to know if she was with him in the way that he thought.

  “It is strange, but since you came I have had this feeling that I have known you … years.” He spoke words that he had used before in flattery and seduction. This was the first time he had ever meant them.

  “Aye. It happens sometimes.” Her gaze rose to meet his, and it was as if she could see into his heart and knew him like a mother knows a son, or a woman her husband. “It comes from you. You expect to die. You have nothing to lose. You are open. I am just the one who is here. If Ascanio had come instead of me, it would have been the same. But I know what you mean.”

  She had felt this before. It was an astounding thought. He continued the game in silence. He could tell she did not want to speak of it.

  She may have been here before, but she was wrong about one thing. If Ascanio had come it would not have been the same. Because Anna was a woman, and Morvan had been aware for some time that he wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman before in his life.

  “Tell me about Josce,” he said, in a futile attempt to distract his thoughts from that. But his blood told him how this night should end. He needed to touch her. He wanted to take the silver band from her head and stroke out her curls with his fingers until her hair swept wild and free again.

  “He is a kinsman. Distant. He came as a page, to be fostered. He was my father's squire, and at his side when he died.”

  He wanted to kiss her. Taste her mouth and her neck. Smell her. He wanted to bend that rigid back over his arm and have her look up at him as he caressed her, as his hand found the lacing to her tunic….

  “He is like a brother to me. But his relationship with Catherine has been something more for several years.”

  He would undress her and discover the body beneath those loose garments. He imagined her hidden breasts as he held them in his hands and took them in his mouth. Her moans of desire filled his head. In his mind's eye, a veil of yielding passion softened her penetrating gaze. He would lay her down, and cover her with his hands and mouth and finally his body….

  “My father's will assumed my brother would inherit and that I would take vows. Now, with my brother Drago gone, when Catherine and Josce marry, Josce will be the next lord of La Roche de Roald.”

  He had seen her ecstasy when she galloped her horse. He wanted to watch her as he took her and that sensual oblivion claimed her for him alone. He would control her and bring her with him, their union finishing what he felt here tonight. Completing it …

  “Sir Morvan,” her voice intruded and brought him back.

  Was he mad? He had confessed and was clean. Yet here he sat, contemplating the seduction of a virgin touched by angels and dedicated to God. But it felt as though heaven itself was part of this temptation.

  “Sir Morvan,” she repeated, tapping the board. “It is your move.”

  He shifted a piece and then watched her again with that unsettling gaze. Anna had been trained in restraint and serenity at the abbey, but her studied reserve hid dismay.

  She had lied to him. She had suggested that she had felt this before, but she had not. The connection was always a possibility when she cared for the dying, but this had been more immediate than ever before. Even with Ascanio, when they had both reached out in their fear of the abyss awaiting them, even then it had built more slowly.

  Later, during the plague, she had feared this unnatural intimacy and the love and pain that it brought. It made the death harder on her. She had been grateful that with most of the sick she could just be mistress and nurse and nothing more.

  And now this. Different. Stronger. Somehow even dangerous.

  He wanted something more. She could feel his spirit stretching toward her.

  She kept the conversation going, because the pauses became filled with an acute expectation that unnerved her. She told of her attempts to settle the estate's future so it would be secured for Brittany. She told him about her many letters to the duke in England, asking for a warden's appointment, and for permission for Catherine to marry.

  She described her problems keeping the estate protected. How, when her brother took sick, some men-at-arms fled and how, with the death, more died. In the end Ascanio had recruited and trained some sons of free-holders on the estate. The plague had given them a respite of sorts, but already problems were starting again and a band of thieves had been harassing the area.

  And then, in the middle of her description of the castle's history, Morvan asked, “Why won't you marry?”

  “If you marry,” he went on, “the estate would be yours.”

  “If I marry, the estate would be my husband's.”

  “Still, you would have a place.”

  She did not want to talk about this. She could never expect anyone, let alone this man, to understand. “Only the place my husband let me have. A woman's place, serving him. I would rather serve God.”

  “If you want freedom, there is little of that in the abbey.”

  “More than you think. For a married noblewoman there is none. The villeins in the fields and the merchant's daughter in town have more. My nature is not suited for such a life and I will not turn myself into something I am not to please a husband.”

  He appeared to study the draughts very closely. “Will you not miss things?”

  He glanced up at her, his eyes as fiery as they had been when she'd left him in the evening. For a moment she felt mesmerized by that gaze. A peculiar excitement coursed through her. The sensation wasn't unpleasant.

  “I will have to give up the horse and the hunt again. Someday I may regret not having children. Besides that, what is there to miss?”

  His wonderful eyes sparkled. He smiled slowly. “I think,” he said, “that you do not know what you are talking about.”

  She felt trapped by his attention. That exhilarating sensation shot through her again. A power emanated from him. It was strong and willful and very male. Her own will and strength retreated from it, leaving her vulnerable and exposed.

  Instinctively, she knew that she had to leave. Now.

  She rose abruptly. “It is very late and I have much to do on the morrow. More important is that you rest.”

  Her cloak lay on his cot. He stood with it in his hands and came over to her. She barely resisted the urge to back away.

  He draped the cloak around her shoulders and fastened the brooch under her neck. She became uncomfortably aware of his closeness as she submitted to his slow actions.

  That strange sensation shook her again.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked at her, his e
yes sparkling like dark jewels.

  He lowered his mouth to her lips in a soft kiss.

  A tremor shot through her like a physical scream.

  His gaze captured her again. She realized that she was staring back like a stunned animal, and shook off the effect. The eyes of a dark angel, Catherine had said. Or maybe just the beginning of a fever. The nurse in her placed her palm on his jaw to check.

  He grabbed her wrist and held her hand on his face.

  “I would have you stay,” he said, kissing her palm, sending chills up her arm. She gasped at the intensity of her reaction.

  Suddenly, she understood. It was so unexpected, so preposterous, that she froze in amazement. It had not been unusual during the plague for men to decide that they would await their fate on top of a woman, but she had certainly never been the woman whom they had in mind. It wasn't just her status protecting her. She simply wasn't the kind of woman whom men desired. But this knight probably thought that she was the only one available.

  She gently extricated her hand. “I cannot.” She walked away, feeling strange and shaky. She was not insulted, just surprised. She knew that men had this need and that there were times when it would not be denied. His had to be very great if he was approaching one such as her.

  At the threshold to the shelter, she paused. He joined her, and his presence warmed her shoulder and side. The air around them weighed heavily with their raw awareness of each other. Looking out into the night, she spoke. “In the town there is a woman who is forever free of the disease and does not fear it. I could send for her. She would come.”

  She could tell that he was watching her. Perhaps he was shocked that she would offer such a thing.

  “I have no interest in the whore.”

  That confused her. Had she misunderstood? She touched his arm lightly to acknowledge what had passed between them, and stepped away.

  A strong hand grabbed her arm, stopping her. With breathless astonishment she felt herself pulled back and turned. The face that she met looked severe in the faint light from the distant hearth. He held her upper arms as if he would lift her from the ground.

  “You do not have to go. Stay with me.”

  “You ask too much. There are limits to Christian charity.”

  “I ask only that you stay until I sleep. Your presence eases my mind. I would have you here only to keep the demons away. I will not offend you.”

  She thought about his death watch, and again remembered her own. How much harder to be a man, who could not show fear or even admit it to himself. What would it have been like without Ascanio there to comfort her?

  That invasive intimacy flowed, heightening her empathy. What could it hurt to sit with him a while longer? He'd promised not to offend her. If he tried…well, she had dealt with that before and always could again.

  “If you will take your rest, I will stay a little longer.”

  Feeling extremely awkward, she followed him back inside. When they reached the cots he turned to her. She hesitated, not knowing where to go or what to do.

  She remembered Ascanio's physical closeness during those desperate hours, and how it gave her such comfort. She could not embrace this man or lie beside him as she had with Ascanio, however. The way he watched and waited looked anything but priestly. She walked over to one of the cots and perched stiffly on its end.

  “Sleep now, Sir Morvan. I will sit by your head.”

  He sat and removed his boots. Unfurling a blanket, he stretched out. He was a tall man, and his head settled not beside her on the cot, but on her lap. She stiffened even more in surprise.

  He reached up and guided her head down. He gave her a long, sweet kiss before releasing her lips. He held her thus, inches from his face, and his dark eyes gazed into hers. She worried that he could hear the clamoring pulse of her heartbeat.

  He smiled ruefully. “It appears that I will die with two regrets instead of one, my lady. When the angels visit you next time, you must demand that I get full credit for my restraint.”

  He dropped his arm and turned on his side, his head cradled on her thighs and his hand resting on her knee.

  She sat motionless, awed by the sensation of his weight on her, stunned by the physicality of it. Still confused by that kiss, she barely breathed until she sensed his body loosening as sleep began to claim him.

  The low fire sent dim lights and shadows down his resting form to his face. He looked younger now with those planes softening in his repose. She reflected on this poignant friendship which the plague had brought her and would soon take away. A dagger, edged with regret and resentment, pierced her heart.

  She raised her hands without thinking, and they hovered in the space above him. Hesitant and awkward, she let her hands fall and come to rest on his shoulder and in the black waves of his hair.

  CHAPTER 5

  SENSATIONS ASSAULTED HIM as he drifted on the edges of the black fog. Restraining weight … Slick, moist heat … A few flashes of light …

  He struggled toward wakefulness, but only touched it, barely. A smell was all that he reached—the stench of corrupted flesh and death. His spirit recoiled, retreating from the odor, but it followed him into the fog, bringing new images that flew at him, filling the blackness, merging into memories worse than any vision wrought by the demons….

  The chamber stunk of corrupted flesh and death.

  Two eyes gazed up from their sunken hollows. A hand summoned weakly, no more than a vague gesture.

  He swallowed sickening bile and leaned over his dying father. How unfair that one chance arrow could lay waste to such a man as Hugh Fitzwaryn.

  “Has Edward come?” The chest wound made the question little more than a gasp for breath. “They know I am dying, so I think that they lie to me. I ask you for the truth.”

  He should lie too, he felt, but he could not. He shook his head. “He has not come. Nor has word that he will.”

  Lids lowered over eyes glazed with pain. His father grew so still that it appeared death had grabbed him.

  The eyes opened again, and bored into him. “It is left to you, then, because my time is over, boy.”

  “I promise you that we will hold. No matter how long it takes, until help comes we will hold, or else we will fight to the last man—”

  “Nay, you must petition for terms. With me gone, the men will break. Hunger would have defeated them already, but for their loyalty to me.”

  “It is too late. What terms can men get who surrender on the brink of defeat?”

  “Not for you and the men. For the women. Get that laird's word that they can leave. Send them to Edward. A knight must protect the weak, boy, and now you must do what must be done to save the ladies.”

  He barely got the last words out. He closed his eyes again. His whole body seemed to shrink, like speech had robbed it of substance.

  Another weak gesture, telling him to leave. He did not. He called for his mother and sister, and held the death vigil with them while the sounds of battle poured in through the windows. He stood there, holding that still hand, hoping that the bravery and strength of the great Hugh Fitzwaryn would pass into his son when he breathed his last.

  In the hour before dawn he left the chamber and went to the lord's solar, no longer a boy. He ordered the steward to send a herald to negotiate, and then prepared himself. He dressed in his finest garments, and strapped his father's sword to his waist. He was tall for his age, but the tip still scraped the floor.

  He sought out the priest and confessed, then prayed in the chapel. He did not visit his mother, for she would try to dissuade him.

  The castle yard fell silent when he emerged from the keep. The men watched solemnly, embarrassed that a ten-year-old boy must offer his own life in a desperate bid to save theirs.

  He marched on bravely, the way his father had taught him a knight walks. He passed through the yard where five months ago he had played with a ball and where he had practiced with a sword made of wood.

  He paused at t
he open gate, and glanced back to the keep. His mother stood at its threshold, gauntly pale from hunger, dark eyes glowing like jewels. The child in him wanted to run back to the comfort of her arms.

  He faced the gate. Death waited on the other side….

  The chamber stunk of corrupted flesh and death.

  He awoke to dampness, heat, and unbearable weakness. It took him awhile to recognize the canvas walls and wooden roof.

  With effort he turned his head. A man twisted painfully on the cot beside him, half exposing his naked body. Dark boils marked the hairy arm and flank. The man mumbled, and he tried in vain to recognize the vague voice. He hoped that it wasn't Gregory.

  His own cot was soaked and clammy and his body was drenched in sweat. Several furs weighed on his weakness and smothered him with their heat. He considered throwing them off, but every muscle shrank from the thought of moving.

  Was he almost dead? He felt more tired than he had ever been in his life. Even a day of fighting did not leave his body this useless.

  The cool air on his face was delicious, like a drink of ale after battle. Focusing his strength, he pulled his right arm from under the furs and let it fall limply. His fingers, free now, stroked the fur's rich nap.

  He touched something silky and fine mixed with the fur. Wrapping his hand in the new texture, he rubbed the soft threads between his thumb and palm.

  Hair. Woman's hair. He slowly shifted his body and bent his neck until he could see.

  Anna sat on the floor beside him, her body turned so that her sleeping head could rest on the cot's edge, nestled in the crook of her right arm. She wore only hose and a man's undertunic. Her upraised arm pulled the fabric around the curve of a breast. A round, full, feminine breast. He could see part of its swell through the gaping neck of the tunic. She bound herself when she wore men's garments, he realized.

  The hose displayed shapely hips and legs. It would be very pleasant to caress those sinuous curves. He decided that he must not be almost dead if he was imagining such a thing.