by Jo Beverley
"None."
"Yes, there is something."
Now didn't seem the time. He'd thought perhaps it need never be spoken of, that they could just go home and finally pretend that none of it had happened.
Except for a child who wasn't his, and the grave of a child who was.
One could never go back. One could only ever make today good.
But there was one problem he could talk of. "Do you think me an honorable fool? To be protected?"
She understood immediately. "Oh, Galeran, in these matters men and women are not much different. Could you stand by and see me walk into a bog without trying to prevent it?"
"No. But I have always let you walk your own path, trusting you to watch where your feet step. You might do as much for me."
"And I misstepped, and fell into the bog! What's worse, I dragged both you and Raymond in with me. It was for me to get us all out."
"Not this way!"
At his sharp voice, Donata startled and came off the breast. Jehanne's milk kept flowing and there was a moment of chaos as she caught the stream on her gown while settling the baby again.
More quietly, he said, "I was handling everything. I could have stopped your beating if you'd sent me word."
"But I did sin, Galeran. In the adultery, but more so in defying God." She looked up. "I needed to be punished."
"So be it," he said bitterly. "We'll send you back for more."
"No, thank you." She didn't react to his anger. In fact, she was smiling, and looking into her eyes, he realized a startling truth.
"You are at peace."
"Yes. Bishop Flambard did not intend to do me good, but he did. The time apart, time and peace to pray, cleansed me, even of my grief for Gallot and the bitterness I still felt about that. I learned about myself, and the punishment helped in some way. I found I couldn't control my body's weak reaction to pain, but I could control my mind. It made me stronger. Cleaner. I am at peace with myself and God, and ready to start again without wounds or shadows. Can we?"
"I would feel blessed to have it so." He moved closer, resting against her, frustrated that he couldn't crush her to him as he wished. For this was a new Jehanne. Not the resentful girl, or the exciting young woman. Not the desperate would-be mother, or the wounded sinner.
Out of the crucible had emerged the best of all of them, and a woman he loved even more than before.
He could not hold her but, as she switched the baby to the new, full breast, he told her about his own trials and self-knowledge. About Jerusalem. About the massacre and the blood flowing through the streets. And about his attempt to save the children, even though he knew it was suicidal.
"Raoul stopped me, but I fought him, even though I knew I was abandoning you and Gallot. It was a wrong decision, but even now I know I would do it again. He had to knock me out to save me, and for days I wandered in my mind. I think in that wandering I learned more of myself. It gave me time to come to terms with my place in God's world, with God's purpose for me."
He smiled at her. "I know for a while Raoul was afraid I really had gone mad, but I was growing accustomed to what was new about me."
"I wondered. You were always a good man, a strong man, but it runs deeper now. It frightened me because I didn't think such goodness could still love me. I feared the strength would be turned against me. I understand better now. The stronger, the better, the better we can love."
She reached out her hand and he wove his dark, callused fingers through her smoother, paler ones. They meshed perfectly.
"Thanks be to God," he said.
* * *
Aline watched Galeran carry Donata to Jehanne, and knew it was over. The adventure was over.
That meant other things might be over too.
Like an assault on her castle.
She searched the warren of anterooms until she found Raoul, chatting to FitzRoger and some other men. They looked at her strangely—a woman invading men's affairs—but Raoul spoke briefly to FitzRoger and stepped apart with her.
"What's happened?" she asked him.
He looked around and steered her behind a curtain. She expected a room, but it was hardly that. More a space with a small window looking out into the crowd of hawkers, gawkers, and entertainers. The king had clearly started another day of receiving his people.
"I suppose I shouldn't have interrupted you," she said.
"Why not? I presume Galeran is too absorbed in Jehanne to give long, coherent explanations." So he related the whole affair, and Aline took it in. But for some reason a large part of her unruly mind was more interested in his height, his breadth, his golden skin, and his very special smiles.
Perhaps it was obvious. When he'd finished, he said, "But you didn't really want to hear all that."
Aline snapped her wits out of heating longings. "Didn't I?"
"I hope not." He stepped forward. She retreated.
In such a tiny space, a two-step retreat had her up against a wall with nowhere else to go.
"I think you were as desperate to see me as I was to see you." He reached to coil a hand around the side of her neck. "As desperate to touch." He leaned forward, his other arm braced on the wall. "As desperate to kiss."
She didn't admit it, but she didn't resist, either.
His kiss was as sweet as her dreams remembered, but it wasn't just a matter of lips on lips. Though he didn't press against her as he had that time in Waltham, it was as if the spirit of him, or his essence, pulsed out to surround her, engulf her, melt her into a need so strong that she wrapped her arms around him and enthusiastically kissed him back.
Slowly, with tiny parting kisses, he pulled out of her arms.
"Until a while ago," Aline complained, "I'd never kissed anyone. And now I can't seem to do without!"
He gently smoothed her brows. "Don't frown so. I promise to keep you well supplied."
"Only if I'm with you."
"I think that would be a requirement, yes."
"But you don't want to live in Northumbria." She wished she didn't have to say these things, but there was a problem here, and it wouldn't melt under kisses, not even those of Raoul de Jouray.
He stopped teasing and turned serious. "Aline, it's a wife's place to live in her husband's house."
"But yours is so far away!"
He considered her soberly, but then smiled. A mild smile, but still enough that she was glad she had the wall at her back to support her. "It has all come upon you suddenly," he said. "It's less than a month since we met. Perhaps you aren't even sure yet that you don't want the religious life."
There was a question there, and she answered it. "No, I'm not entirely sure."
But it was a lie. She knew now that she could never settle peacefully to the chaste and tranquil religious life.
"Go back home with Galeran, then, and consider these things. I'll come again next summer to hear your decision."
"Next year! You addict me to kisses, you wretch, then tell me to wait a year?"
"What else?" But a glint of humor in his eyes suggested that he understood her all too well. As he always had. Perhaps that was what irritated her most about him.
Aline pushed away from the wall and away from him. "I think you seek an excuse to sail away and forget me. You like to travel, not stay at home. You fall into bed with every willing woman who crosses your path. You know every brothel in every town. You doubtless have wives scattered all around the world—"
With warrior swiftness, he seized her, covering her mouth with his hand. "You don't have to drive me away with silly words, Aline. Just tell me to go."
When he uncovered her mouth, she wailed, "I don't know!" and burst into tears on his chest.
There were no seats in the plain room, so he settled on the floor with her in his lap until she'd cried herself out.
"I don't know what's wrong with me," she sniffed, deeply mortified, but relishing being in his strong arms.
He held her even closer, in a comforting embrace, no
t a lustful one. "I must have been mad to press you for an answer at such a time, love. Put it down to rash ardency."
She ventured a look up. "Are you? Ardent."
He moved his hips and she felt his ardency quite clearly.
"Mere lust," she muttered, hot-cheeked. "Do you truly want to marry me, Raoul?"
"Yes."
"Why?" And she looked fully at him, needing the answer.
"Because," he said simply, "I've never met a woman who affects me quite as you do. I've been fond of many, I admit it, and even fancied myself in love a time or two. But I've never felt this way before. It's as if part of me would be lost if I leave you behind."
Aline stared at him, seeking a way to doubt him. It was a weighty burden to bear, being so important to another person. Of course he was as important to her. If he sailed away, she feared she'd be half alive for the rest of her days.
He rubbed his knuckles against her cheek. "I can wait, little one, until you know how you feel."
"I know how I feel," she grumbled. "I feel wretched! And lustful," she admitted. One of his beautifully muscled arms stretched in front of her, and she ran her hand along it, feeling the power and heat. "Very lustful." She wriggled slightly to settle even closer to his body.
He gripped her hips to still them, but grinned. "That's a promising start."
"Hah!" She made herself stop playing with his arm and looked him in the eye. "Half the women you meet lust after you, Raoul de Jouray, and they don't love you."
"Only half?"
She thumped his chest and scrambled to her feet. He followed at his leisure, dusting off his clothes.
That gave her a moment to study him, which did nothing to cool her longings. Perhaps she was going to have to send him away, to never see him again, to never...
"If we made love," she suggested, cheeks heating, "then I'd know if it was only lust or not."
He raised a brow. "If we made love, my luscious grape, you'd be addicted for life."
"Oh, you... you... prideful cock!" Over his laughter, she demanded, "Is that enough, though, for the rest of our lives? To want to make love?"
He gave it careful thought. "If it is making love, yes. If it's only lust, no."
"How do we tell the difference without trying? Maybe I wouldn't like it, lust or love. Some women don't. Then I'd know I was supposed to be in the convent...."
She was trying to find logical arguments, but the truth was that she was terrified that she would never know his body as she wanted to. Never see him naked again. Never lie skin to skin...
She knew her face must be cherry-red.
"You'd like it," he said with quiet confidence. "My years of practice have to be worth something. But beg as you will, Aline, I have no intention of making love to you until we are sanctified by God."
At the word beg she hit out. "So, you're going to wait in celibacy until I make up my mind?"
And thus came, impulsively, to the heart of her problem. She would rather lose him for all time than share him with other women.
And the wretch didn't instantly promise to be faithful.
Instead, he thought about it.
Aline turned and fled the room.
* * *
When Galeran emerged from Jehanne's room to arrange to get his party back to Hugo's house, he found Raoul already had the matter in hand. "The king's stables have provided extra horses. Your father has his own."
Galeran eyed his friend, detecting something close to ill humor in him, but now was hardly the time to ask about it. He wanted Jehanne safely back at Hugo's house before he even thought about other matters. He'd rather have her safely back at Heywood, but since people couldn't fly, and she couldn't travel, that was out of the question.
Jehanne wore Aline's tunic over her ruined clothes, and when she walked out and mounted the mother superior's jennet with the help of a mounting block, no one would have thought she was in great pain. Galeran could tell the effort it was to preserve her pride in that way, and he smiled with fierce joy at her courage.
Being a large body of riders, they pushed easily through the crowds and out into the streets, but then had to fight their way slowly against the human tide all the way to Corser Street.
Hugo and Mary were delighted to play host to the mighty William of Brome, but their house was now even more crowded than before. Since their hosts also wanted an account of all their adventures—as well as details about the king's looks, his clothes and apartments, not to mention the wines he drank—it was evening before Galeran had a chance to speak privately to Raoul.
In the meantime, however, he hadn't missed the fact that Aline also looked tense. Galeran feared his obsession with Jehanne's problems had allowed these two to be foolish. In the end, he invited his friend out into the street, where they weren't alone, but had some privacy amid the uncaring passersby.
"Is something the matter?" Galeran asked.
"Why do you ask?"
"Raoul, don't spar with me. What's happened between you and Aline?"
Raoul gave a sharp, humorless laugh. "Absolutely nothing. Which is probably the problem."
Galeran leaned back against a hogshead that was waiting to be rolled into the warehouse. "You can hardly have expected Aline to be a candidate for a pleasure bout."
A startling anger flashed through Raoul's eyes. "Do you think so little of me?"
Galeran raised a hand. "Pax, friend. But what do you want, and what is the problem?"
It seemed as if Raoul had some trouble putting the words together, but then he said, "I want Aline as my wife. The trouble is that she has again said no."
"Really?" Galeran might have been obsessed with his own affairs in recent weeks, but he didn't think he'd been mistaken in the bright sparks dancing between Raoul and Aline. "You did make it clear what you were offering, didn't you?"
"Ha! Entirely clear. It was the fair lady herself who proposed an unblessed romp. She wanted to test the blade before she purchased it."
Galeran was hard pressed not to chuckle. "You must have unsettled her mightily, then. A few weeks ago she never would have suggested such a thing."
"I've deliberately unsettled her, thinking she'd fall neatly into my arms like a plum loosened on the branch. But no. The women of your wife's family do nothing in the normal way."
"One becomes accustomed. And there are compensations."
Raoul paced restlessly in front of the vintner's house, the passersby keeping well out of the way of such a tall and frowning warrior. "I would be delighted to become accustomed, but how? I offered her marriage, and she wanted me to live in Northumbria. You know that's impossible."
"You'd shiver to death."
Raoul sent him a scathing glance. "More to the point, I have property and responsibility elsewhere. I offered to give her a year to make up her mind—and that stretched my nobility and restraint to its limit—and she proposed a test of the wares!"
"Perhaps that is the best idea."
"Test the wares?"
"Give her time."
"I don't dare." Raoul looked down the street, though Galeran suspected that he wasn't seeing much. "I daren't risk returning to find she's taken her nun's vows. Or married another now that I've whetted her appetite."
"She wouldn't do that."
"Women are fiendishly unpredictable. I've broken down her walls. I can't leave her now that she's vulnerable."
Before Galeran could ask an explanation of that, Raoul looked him in the eye and said, "I won't lose her, Galeran. I'll abduct her if necessary."
"I'd have to stop you."
"I'd try to make sure you didn't have the chance." But, his stance said silently, if it comes to blood, so be it.
Was this whole tangled affair going to end at sword's point after all? Not if Galeran could help it. He hadn't come through the war to lose all in a minor skirmish in the aftermath. "Why did she refuse you?"
"Some nonsense about my fidelity, and about traveling abroad."
"Hardly nonsense.
Fidelity has not been your way to date. And would you rather have a wife who'd throw her common sense to the wind at the first touch of desire?"
Raoul grinned. "Sometimes, yes."
Galeran shared the smile. "Indeed. But it's no easy matter for some people to leave their home to live in a strange land. A girl like Aline, even if she had planned to marry, never planned to do such a thing. She would have married a man from a nearby estate."
"There's no choice in it, though. I've enjoyed traveling, but I've always intended to settle on my land in the Guyenne."
"Perhaps Aline would not care for the Guyenne."
"A person would have to be mad not to love the Guyenne."
"If people loved only the most pleasing corners of God's earth, we'd be in a sorry state. My friend, I think you have wooed and won Aline's heart, but you will not woo her out of her common sense. You'll have convince her head that she will be safe and happy in this strange soil, far from her family and friends, alone in times of trouble."
"She will not be alone...."
"You must convince her of that."
Raoul exclaimed, "Christ's crown, if only I were a better liar!"
"What?"
Suddenly rueful, Raoul said, "She asked me if I would be faithful to her while she made up her mind."
"You said no?" Galeran could hardly believe it.
"I didn't say anything. I was trying to be honest, Galeran. I was giving it careful thought. I haven't been celibate for a year since I first had a woman, and I had no intention of making a promise I could not keep. She didn't wait to hear."
"Can you make that vow now?"
Almost as if in pain, Raoul said, "If it's her price, yes."
Galeran shook his head, pushing off the cask. "It's not that simple. She has to trust you with her life. Almost literally. I suggest you put your mind to convincing her, for I assure you, she's not leaving England unless she goes willingly."
* * *
Jehanne, propped up on cushions so she could lie on her front without pressing on her sensitive breasts, listened to Aline relate her adventures during her escape without actually mentioning Raoul de Jouray except in passing.
"You spent the night together in a bed?" Jehanne asked. It was a deduction, since Aline hadn't actually said as much.
