This was the moment she had long dreaded. Could she flee now and get Rowena away before the smithy returned for peat?
Please, Lord in Heaven, keep Rowena safe.
The Norman laughed. “I was about to say you were a superstitious fool, blacksmith, but ’tis obvious that some of your fellow Saxon curs have followed you and stolen from you.”
Clara dared another glance around the corner. But all she could see was the smithy level his stare at the Norman. “I won’t be able to shoe this horse if I am attacked by one of those Saxon curs who is forced to hide from your fool Norman laws.”
The horse snorted between the smithy and the Norman. The blacksmith lifted his hand to soothe the nervous beast. Aye, Clara thought. The horse smelled the tension between the men.
The soldier waved his hand. “So your fellow Saxons like to dig peat between attacks against innocent Normans? Are you a man or a timid boy afraid he’ll lose his next meal?”
The smithy lifted his chin and folded his arms. “Say what you like, Norman, but I will not dig peat after the noon hour. Someone evil lives in the bog, and ’twould do you no good should I be injured. I care not that my lunch was stolen, but whilst I dig peat, who knows who could come up to me and crack me on the head? Where would your master’s horse be then?”
Despite wishing the smithy would stop talking, Clara had to smile. He stood up to Taurin’s soldier well.
“Enough!” Kenneth ordered. “Even if he did have the peat, he couldn’t work into the night. Do you see any lanterns to light this shop? Let it go, soldier.”
The Norman stepped forward to close the distance between him and the blacksmith. “Very well, but be warned. People around here may say that Lord Adrien has the king’s ear, but so does Lord Taurin. Should the king learn you delayed his knight due to fear of some old hermit, it will not bode well for you or this village.”
Peeking around the corner, Clara bit her lip. Would this argument come to blows? From the corner of her eye, she spied another of the new soldiers closing in and hurried onto the path toward the center of the village, praying all the while that Kenneth would not be caught in any fray that might start.
Her concern was for naught. As she tried to walk casually away, she could hear Kenneth end the argument. “Soldier, return to the keep. ’Tis a pointless argument and the rain is not making your temper any better.” He spoke to the smith. “Keep this horse in your stable. And be up at dawn to harvest your peat. You have the afternoon free of work, so I suggest you use it wisely. Mayhap you should prepare for the task ahead.”
Neither the soldier nor the smithy answered. Clara kept up her steady pace, hoping that the two soldiers, the one who argued and the one who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, would pay her no mind. To them, she was nothing, and she was glad for it.
A few paces along, she noticed the soldiers had headed back to the bailey, and she eased out the breath she’d been holding.
Until someone grabbed her elbow.
She started and grabbed it back. But Kenneth took it again and led her through the rain toward her house, saying nothing. As they made their way out of sight of the bailey gate, Clara judged his mood. By the way he gripped her elbow, she would say his temper had been thinned by the argumentative pair he’d just left.
He said nothing until they reached her house. He closed the door behind him. “You shouldn’t have followed me down to the smith’s. You were being ignored up to that point.”
She felt her cheek warm and busied herself removing the soaked veil and choking wimple. Her cloak weighed heavily, too, and as she peeled it off she peeked into the small bedroom to see that Brindi had decided to lie down on the pallet. Her eyes were closed. Poor thing was tuckered out. “I’m sorry. I went there to look for Brindi. The cook in the keep sent her to Gwynth to help her with her boys. I didn’t want one of them to call out her name. Taurin had already mentioned it.” She eyed Kenneth carefully. “’Twas a tense situation at the smithy.”
Abruptly, he looked up from his task of removing his cloak. Their eyes met squarely, his drilling into her soul until Clara was sure he could see every secret she was keeping.
“Nothing unusual,” he said, still studying her closely. “I have handled worse. I think that Lord Adrien did well today. We will see Lord Taurin depart on the morrow, empty-handed.”
“Aye, Lord Adrien and Lady Ediva are quite clever. You did well, also.”
Slowly, a smile eased onto Kenneth’s lips. “As I live and breathe, I never thought I would hear a compliment from your mouth. I shall die a happy man.”
She sniffed. “Just not in my home, please. I merely meant that you did well with the smithy and that soldier. It could have come to blows.”
“Aye. Two stubborn men arguing over a horse’s shoe of all things. ’Tis foolish.”
’Twas foolish indeed, but the smithy had been adamant about not going into the bog late in the day. Was it Rowena he felt watching him? Clara wouldn’t have thought it possible that the girl would try to scare the man away. But a free lunch sitting there by the bog would be too much temptation for a hungry, nursing mother.
Most likely, Rowena was caught outside and took advantage of the available food. The smithy probably heard the babe and thought him an animal.
Kenneth pulled off his cloak. “Let’s hope that the soldier doesn’t go to the bog this afternoon to harvest the peat for himself.”
Clara’s gaze shot up, as did her eyebrows, as she gasped. “Would he? Does he suspect—” She clamped shut her mouth. Then, realizing that silence would only add to any suspicion, she continued, “I mean, would he do it to prove he was braver than the smith? To curry favor with Lord Taurin?”
Kenneth stepped closer, his focus honing in on Clara as he draped his wet cloak over the end of the table near the embers of the morning’s fire. She tensed.
“Mayhap he might go there to prove his bravery,” Kenneth answered smoothly.
She turned her head to watch him remove his surcoat, that outer tunic of a simple design. He tipped his head and studied her until she was forced to wrench free her gaze and sit there on the bench, feeling his presence as close as the dampness of the day. She could smell the faint odor of mint and mallow around him, the herbs he’d washed with earlier.
“Clara?”
She shot him another look. He was even closer now as he spoke. “Or mayhap he has put together the clues and knows where Rowena is.”
Chapter Fifteen
An icy hand gripped Clara’s heart. She heard her own gasp before she realized she’d given herself away.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
Tears threatened, and she hated that they chose that moment to arrive. She reached forward and grabbed his tunic. Automatically, he snagged her arms to capture her movement. Like her, he was wet from the persistent rain. Everything they wore was damp and cold. Her heart twisted in her chest to think that, out there in the bog, Rowena lay huddled in a peat cutter’s hut, a hut that probably leaked rain like a tree in spring. But she was still safer there than in Lord Taurin’s grasp.
“Please, Kenneth, leave Rowena alone. Don’t say a word to anyone! If you tell Lord Adrien, he may tell Lord Taurin! And if you go to her yourself, surely you’ll be noticed, and one of those soldiers will follow you and discover her!”
He pulled her closer. “Clara, what have you done?”
She looked away. “I had no idea that the smithy used that peat in his fires! The bog is old and very small. I thought it had not been used since the Romans were here.”
“You must have known the peat would be used, especially by the smith!”
“Nay, the smithy in Colchester used coal brought in from the west.”
He leaned forward, disbelief hanging so heavily on his features, it almost changed his whole appearance. He shook his head slowly. “You left Rowena and her babe in a bog? You say you have sworn to never hurt anyone, but you abandoned a new mother and child in a bog?”
“N
ay, not abandoned! There’s a hut there. The smithy must not have noticed it or else paid it no mind. ’Tis mossy and low and almost completely hidden. The bog is nearly gone, for the nearby channels dug years ago have drained the land. I heard of it just before I was ordered to come here, from visitors to Colchester who said even those Saxons who defy King William’s curfew were afraid to go there. I hid Rowena in it because ’twas closer to Dunmow than where I kept her before. You know I have been going there most nights, delivering food and checking on them. Only since this rain have I not been.”
“It can’t be healthy for her to stay there.” He lifted his brows and eased his grip. “Well, at least there is peat to burn for warmth.”
“Nay. Rowena is afraid to light a fire in the hut for fear of drawing notice. I don’t even know if she has the sense to know she can burn peat.” Clara caught him with a fresh grip. “Oh, Kenneth, tell me you won’t say a word about her location! You’ve met Lord Taurin. You’ve seen him now! Would you trust a child to his care? Why, he hasn’t even brought a cart in which to carry the babe, should he even find him!”
The tears swelled, and she felt them roll down her cheeks. Kenneth blurred in front of her and her throat hurt. When she pulled in a breath, it wobbled and wheezed like a set of broken bellows.
“Taurin would take Rowena with him.”
“So the girl is to ride with a babe, when she probably can’t ride at all? And ride to her death?”
If Kenneth had an answer for her, he kept it to himself. Clara swallowed and peeked up at him. His brows were furrowed, his lips a tight, thin line, Kenneth was worried.
“Let’s pray that she’s still alive, for the day is cold and the girl can’t be strong.”
“Nay, she’s not. She was too young to have motherhood forced on her.” Her heart squeezed again, and grief crimped her throat.
Then, with a sigh, Kenneth moved his hands up to cup her face. With his thumbs, he wiped away the tears that wet her cheeks. Immediately, ’twas as if her fears drained away. It felt so good to have him hold her, and she pressed her eyes shut to savor the moment.
She must be addled to want his nearness when she knew she’d disappointed him so. But she couldn’t help her feelings, even knowing he would most likely leave in the next minute to report Rowena’s whereabouts to Lord Adrien.
Please don’t leave, Kenneth. Please stay here with me.
Aye, she was indeed addled to think he would stay. Addled to want him here and not only because the alternative would result in Rowena’s capture. She’d never felt such a desire for a man’s presence as she felt for Kenneth’s. He was everything that was wrong for her. He was a soldier, a Norman in a land where Normans weren’t wanted. And while she’d pledged never to do harm, always to help the sick and injured, he was a soldier who’d battled his way from Hastings to London with his soldier king. He would kill, while she must heal and help.
What a fool she was! She must be, for here, now, with Kenneth holding her face and wiping her tears, all she knew was how much she wanted Kenneth to hold her.
“Kenneth, forgive me. Hold me.”
“Aye.” His word brushed over her like a breeze at the beach. His eyes drifted shut, urging hers to follow. She could feel him shorten the scant distance between them. She knew his head tipped to the left, and she knew she did the same.
She hadn’t ever kissed a man before, but she knew immediately that the first time was going to happen and there was nothing she could do about it.
And nothing she wanted to do about it.
Kenneth pulled her closer, dipping his head just as his lips touched hers. The kiss wasn’t what she expected. Weren’t kisses supposed to be passionate, out-of-control things that were so full of emotion that they swept a woman away? ’Twas what the minstrels sang of and poets crooned of, wasn’t it?
Yet Kenneth merely brushed her lips with his, so lightly she could scarcely feel it. She didn’t feel as though she was being swept away. Instead, with breath held, she felt as though she was clinging to a rock as the tide surged in, threatening to swallow her whole.
Suddenly, Kenneth’s kiss deepened, growing more forceful and demanding. Her reply came from that passionate sea, where she was being tossed by the wind and swept along like a piece of flotsam upon the water.
Still, she opened herself to him, kissing him back and clinging to him with the ferocity of a life afraid to die.
’Twas wonderful. Clara had never considered a kiss would be so wonderful, but ’twas so.
But was it only a ploy to divert her attention from Rowena?
He released her face and wrapped his arms around her, moving his mouth to her cheek, her ear, the hair that was finally free of that terribly constrictive wimple. His whole frame pressed against her, and she reveled in the feel of his warmth and strength.
Then she recalled Rowena.
She stepped out of his arms. A maid’s first kiss should be exciting, born from love for her man, carrying with it a promise of a life together. It should be a kiss shared at the altar, not one built on shame and subterfuge.
Kenneth stiffened. “On the morrow, we will decide what needs to be done with Rowena.”
Her traitorous tears welled up again. Nay, she was sure Kenneth had kissed her to distract her from trying to convince him to stay quiet about Rowena.
Nothing had changed.
Except that she was in danger of caring too much for Kenneth. And of Rowena being returned to a man who would surely kill her.
* * *
Kenneth knew his words had frightened Clara, and he wished with all his pounding heart that he could pluck them from the air between them and toss them into the fire.
But what had been said was true. They would deal with Rowena on the morrow, for he couldn’t decide tonight. Their kiss seemed to smother his good sense and he dared not do something he might later regret.
In front of him, Clara spun and began to stir the embers to rekindle the fire. Her movements were jagged and harsh, born of shaking hands.
Kenneth didn’t need a fire, for her kiss had warmed him to his very core. But performing other tasks gave them both something to focus on other than the passion that had arced between them like lightning from the clouds to the earth.
The steady beat of rain outside increased. Muted by the thatch, its sound was almost a hum. What he could see of the day was fast dwindling. Brindi slept on soundly, as only a child could sleep.
“I should return to the keep to ensure Lord Taurin hasn’t turned his anger on someone else, like Rypan, again.”
Clara’s attention shot up with alarm. “To the keep?”
He swallowed. “Aye. Clara, I have promised you that we will decide what to do with Rowena on the morrow. Too much has happened today, and I fear our emotions will tamper with our good judgment. And Taurin must be watched, even though he doesn’t know where to find you.”
Throwing on his damp cloak, Kenneth stepped outside into the rain. The weather had worsened, and he spied his carved apple set out to dry. ’Twould never do so in this weather. He pulled his hood up and pushed through the rain toward the keep.
Where the road met the path to the bailey gate, Kenneth turned, half expecting to see Clara hurrying down the lane after him. But the road was wet and empty.
All remained quiet. Feeling unexpectedly disappointed, he moved along the path. The gateman let him in, and he hurried up the motte and into the keep through the kitchen. He found the cook and two maids preparing vegetables for the morrow’s meal. Hovering at the edge of the glow of lanterns was Rypan, obviously too fearful to return to the stables and mayhap hoping for a bite to eat. The cook was his aunt, and Kenneth knew she would often slip him extra food when she thought no one was looking.
“Next time, keep Brindi with you,” Kenneth told the cook. “’Twas dangerous to send her out among those soldiers.”
The cook frowned. “The smith’s wife was struggling with her children and needed someone to help. But aye, sir, I won�
��t allow her out again.”
Kenneth nodded. “What is happening in the hall tonight?”
“Lord Adrien and Lord Taurin are discussing battle foolishness there. Milady has retired for the evening. I can’t say I’ll be sad when that Lord Taurin puts Dunmow Keep at his back and is gone for good. The castle has been in an uproar since he arrived and that was only last night. Word is that he’ll be gone on the morrow.”
Rypan jerked, catching Kenneth’s attention. He shook his head so quickly, the sergeant wondered if ’twere just a twitch due to his condition.
Kenneth bade the cook goodbye and walked out into the corridor. The Great Hall was noisy with the sounds of men, but this stretch of space was empty. Sensing someone behind him, he turned.
Rypan stood there, nearly as tall as Kenneth, but far lankier, all elbows and knees. “What is it, Rypan?”
The boy rarely spoke and now he bit his lip.
The cook appeared behind the boy. “Is something wrong?”
Kenneth nodded. “Rypan wants to say something.”
The cook took her nephew’s arm gently. “Rypan, you can tell us. What do you need to say?”
Rypan peered down at his shifting feet. His body shook. Kenneth felt sorry for both aunt and nephew. Rypan was addled most of the time, and for as long as Kenneth had been here, he’d only heard Rypan mutter a few words.
“I have a sweetmeat saved for you, Rypan,” the cook coaxed. “Tell us what you need to say. Slowly.”
“Taurin won’t leave...m-morrow. P-plans,” he stuttered.
“What would you know of his plans?” the cook asked, her voice still calm. She’d had years of experience with him and obviously cared for the boy.
Still, darting his gaze to Kenneth, Rypan began to back up. Knowing that the boy would soon flee, Kenneth smiled at him, telling the cook calmly, “’Tis very good. He deserves that sweetmeat, doesn’t he, Cook?”
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