White Lion's Lady

by Tina St. John

  Although she feared what he might say, Isabel reached out her hand to him. “You can tell me anything, Griffin.”

  To her relief, he did not pull away. He wouldn’t look at her, but he caught her fingers and held them, his grasp firm, needful somehow. His thumb idly stroked the back of her knuckles as he spoke, staring at their clasped hands. “You remember how Sir Robert had made provisions for the woman and her new husband?”

  “Yes. He wanted to make up for what Dom had done.”

  Griffin sighed, his chest lifting as he drew another breath and continued. “When the earl died later that year, Dom immediately called for a strict accounting of his assets. He wanted to know where all of his money was going and to whom. Upon learning of Sir Robert’s arrangement, he flew into a rage. I was ordered to accompany him down to the village and help him eject the couple from their cottage. I suppose I thought he would turn them both out of Droghallow and let the matter go.” He made a dry sound in the back of his throat. “Dom had other plans.”

  Isabel swallowed a sudden knot of dread. “What did he do?”

  “It was noontide when we got there. The woman and her husband had just sat down to share a meal before continuing on with their day’s tasks. Dom demanded entry, and of course, as their overlord, they could not refuse him. He drew his sword and cleared their table with a long sweep of his arm, telling them that as he had paid for the food, it was his to ruin. He had similar words for the woman.”

  “They must have been so terrified,” Isabel whispered, finding it easy to put herself in their place, at the mercy of a cruel lord’s whims with nowhere to run.

  “She was crying, pleading for mercy as Dom advanced on her. Her husband tried to intervene, but I stood between him and Dom. He was cursing us both, snarling as he fought to get past me and help his wife. He slipped on some of the debris scattered on the floor of the hut, and when he got back to his feet, he had a small knife in his hand. Dom was too preoccupied to notice the threat, but I saw the blade plain enough, and I knew the cottar intended to use it.” Griffin was frowning, likely reliving the painful moment in his mind. He blinked, then finally turned his gaze on Isabel. “I couldn’t let him do it.”

  “Griffin …” she said softly, feeling the burden of his guilt.

  “I had promised I would look after Dom, and despite my loathing for him in that instant, I could not stand aside and let him be killed. So I struck first. I murdered that young man when all he wanted to do was spare his wife from a second degradation at Dom’s hands.” Griffin exhaled a shaky breath. “He had to know he would die, but it didn’t stop him from acting, from doing what was right. I admired his honor, but it didn’t save him or his home. And it didn’t save his wife, either.”

  “Mother Mary,” she sighed, heartsick. “Have you carried this with you all these years?”

  “I should have turned my blade on Dom instead,” he replied, not hearing her, too caught up in the pain of old memories to see that she did not condemn him for what he had done. “Maybe now you better understand who I am. Maybe now you see how wrong you were to try to save me.”

  “No,” she said. “This doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change the way I think about you … it doesn’t change the way I feel.”

  “It damned well should,” he scoffed. “You should be scheming a way to be rid of me at first chance.”

  “I never want to be rid of you, Griffin,” she answered without hesitation. “I think I would go with you to the ends of the earth if you asked me to.”

  He went suddenly still as he looked at her then, searching her gaze as if confused by her gesture of understanding, confused by the depth of her acceptance of him in that moment. When she brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his battle-hardened fingers, he swore a soft oath. “My lady,” he whispered, part question, part warning.

  Isabel said nothing, holding his pained stare as she turned her face into his palm and kissed its warm, callused center. Griffin’s brows crashed together, a tormented frown that bespoke of his inner turmoil. His eyes penetrated through the gloom of the cavern, searching hers, hungry yet uncertain, no doubt a reflection of her own gaze. He said her name and then he was moving closer to her, catching her mouth with his.

  They kissed with a desperation neither could deny, their lips meeting, parting, then meeting again, hands touching, twining, trembling in their quest for contact. Isabel had never felt so alive, so willing to let go of everything so long as she was clinging to Griffin. She took all that he gave her in that moment, welcoming the sensual invasion of his tongue, letting his hands close over her naked breasts that so ached for his touch. She opened to him wherever he wanted her to, holding him close.

  Wanting him closer.

  When she would have wrapped her arms around him tighter, instead he started to back away. “No,” he said, his voice thick, strangled-sounding. “I don’t want to hurt you, Isabel.”

  Lovingly, she stroked his cheek. “You’re not.”

  “Yes, I am. I will. This isn’t fair to you. I promised myself—” He broke off abruptly, shaking his head. “I can’t do this to you. I won’t.” Behind him, the fire popped and shifted, the last of the kindling fading to embers. He reached out, drawing the mantle tighter around her shoulders. “The fire will be out soon. You should try to sleep before it starts to get cold in here.”

  She didn’t bother to argue because in that next moment, Griffin moved beside her and gathered her into his arms. His embrace was now more nurturing than sensual, and while her body still sang with his kiss, his wondrous touch, Isabel found herself snuggling into him like a kitten nesting in a basket of warm fleece. She buried her face in the solid comfort of his chest, breathing in the scent of him, that sublime mix of woodsmoke, night air, and man. Her palm rested over his heart, the steady thud of his pulse soothing her, easing her into a state of total tranquility and peace.

  Her eyelids drifted closed almost immediately, and soon she was drifting off, succumbing to the weightlessness of a deep, black sleep that seemed to pull her under like the tide.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  He must have fallen asleep, though for how long Griff could not be certain. The fire had long since burnt to ash; morning was dawning damp and chilly beyond the cave, the cold air permeating the curve of rock at his back and seeping through his tunic and into his bones. Griffin pulled the edge of his mantle a little higher around Isabel, who slept soundly in his arms, quiet as a babe. He moved gently, loath to wake her as he reached down to tuck the soft wool under her chin.

  Refreshed from sleep, his body responded easily to the feel of her draped over him in languorous slumber, their legs entwined beneath the cover of the cloak, her hip propped against his, her slender torso and firm, full breasts nestled enticingly into his chest. She was warm and soft in his arms, an angel fell from heaven on broken wings, wounded, trusting him to take care of her.

  All too willingly, Griffin’s mind returned to the intimacy they had shared last night, her tender understanding of his shame, her infinite goodness. His mind returned to the kiss they shared, as well, to the searing passion he had felt in Isabel’s embrace, the hunger he had scarcely been able to control. God help him, he felt those savage stirrings come to life again just looking at her, just recalling the sweetness of her touch, her innocent sensuality. Of its own accord, his hand came up to caress the soft waves of her unbound hair, which tumbled down her back and onto him in a warm cloud of auburn silk. For a long moment, he tipped his head back and allowed himself to savor the quiet of the moment. He allowed himself to simply savor the feel of her, tracing his fingers idly through her hair.

  Though it went against all logic and reason, Griffin wondered what it might be like for the two of them without the threat of Dominic or John Lackland. He wondered what it would be like without the royal order of Isabel’s marriage to Sebastian of Montborne. How much silver would it take, he wondered, for the both of them to run away from all of this madness? How feasible might it
be to disappear from England, to flee to someplace where they could be safe together? Someplace where they would never be found.

  Although he doubted there existed such a place, it did not keep Griffin from thinking on it, from wishing for a solution to the impossible situation that held them pinned between two unbearable outcomes, each to result in their inevitable separation.

  I think I would go with you to the ends of the earth if you asked me to.

  That earnest if not slightly drunken confession continued to haunt him all these hours later. God rot him, but when she said it, he had nearly swept her up and taken her away on the spot. He was tempted to do so even now. Particularly now, before she woke up sober and clearheaded enough to recant her foolish offer.

  “My sweet Izzy,” Griff whispered as he stroked the lean curve of her arm. “What are we to do, you and I?” Tenderly, he swept aside the mass of flame-colored waves that had fallen into her face, then bent his head down to press his lips to her brow.

  All the blood in his veins seemed to freeze the moment his mouth touched her skin.

  Her forehead burned like fire against his mouth; her skin was flushed pink and hot to the touch.

  Dear God, Griffin realized in sudden, sweeping alarm. She was fevered.

  “Isabel?” he said on a harsh, indrawn breath. “Isabel, wake up.”

  But she did not so much as stir. Her lifeless form sprawled atop him like a child’s doll, limp, unmoving, unhearing. Terrifyingly still.

  “Isabel,” he repeated, his voice stern, strangled with budding panic. He gave her a little shake, but it did nothing to rouse her. He felt her cheeks with the back of his hand, pressed his ear to her pale, parched lips to listen for signs of life. The shallow breath of air she drew into her lungs gave him hope, but when he then pulled away the coverlet and hastily removed the bandage from her arm, he knew a swift and heart-wrenching twist of dread.

  The wound had become infected. Thready fingers of redness trailed out from the center of the gash in all directions, poison creeping insidiously under her creamy skin. The light in the cave was too dim to tell how far the danger had advanced. Praying it was not as bad as he feared, Griffin carefully rolled Isabel into his arms and got to his feet. The mantle she was wrapped in trailed behind him, rustling on the earthen floor and then through the fallen leaves as he carried her out of the cavern, ducking under the low overhang of ivy-covered granite and bringing her into the pale light of the new morn.

  Dawn proved to be as cruel as it was honest. In the pinkish glow of the autumn sunrise, Isabel’s wound bloomed red and angry at her shoulder, fanning out in a jagged star-burst shape toward her breast and lower arm, the infection seeming to spread almost before Griffin’s eyes. God’s blood, he should have known. He had been too late with the wine, too late cleaning the injury. He stared down at the fiery wound, cursing himself for her pain. He had promised to take care of her, had sworn to her that she would be all right.

  Damnation, but she had trusted him. He could not fail her; he had to make it right somehow. He had to get her fever down before she slipped away entirely, had to find a way to cool her heated brow and body.

  Heading toward the trickling rush of the nearby stream, Griffin carried Isabel through the forest bracken and down the gentle slope of the riverbed. His boots slipped on the muck and dew-slicked rocks as he brought her to the water’s edge and waded in. The icy brook soaked his hose and boots, the bracing cold drenching him to the waist, chilling him to the bone. He held Isabel in his arms, using his free hand to gather water and anoint her forehead as the current swirled and churned around them.

  His teeth were chattering, limbs growing numb, but he hardly noticed. Over and over, he scooped up handfuls of water and fed it to her fever, praying it would help, praying she would respond. God help him, he had never felt so helpless, so inept. He did not know what to do, nor where he could take her. He was alone with her in these woods, alone with the responsibility of making her better, for he could not bring her into town and risk certain capture the moment they ventured into the open streets. Their allies—and, indeed, their choices—had been few before and were dwindling fast now that their bounty price had gone so high.

  They had no one to turn to, nowhere to go.

  And so Griffin simply started running, knee-deep in the freezing cold water of the stream. The weight of the current pushed against him with every stride, making his steps heavy, dragging. Sunlight slanted down from the treetops to dance on the surface of the brook, shattering like crystal as he crashed through it. Above him, high in the canopy of branches, a flock of starlings screeched at the intrusion and took flight. Somewhere, up ahead in the distance, Griffin heard the faint hum of voices raised in mournful song.

  Monks’ voices, he realized, chanting their Latin prayers. The vaguely familiar, low-tenor, haunting tone caught his ear at once, drawing him toward the sound like a beacon in a storm. He trudged out of the water and up the bank, his feet dragging in the leaves and pine needles that blanketed the loamy ground, his breath huffing out of his straining lungs and misting in the chill forest air. He saw nothing ahead to indicate his progress toward the monastery; his ears alone guided him through the gorse and bracken that clawed at his boots and snagged on Isabel’s trailing, sodden mantle. He traversed one rock-strewn gully and then a next, half stumbling in his haste, his panic, commanding his legs to keep going, pleading with Isabel to hang on, that it could not be far now.

  And it wasn’t, thank God.

  At last, the dark shadows of the monastery came into view through the trees. A low curtain wall of river rock and stacked wedges of granite circled a clutch of ancient buildings that seemed to rely more on their remoteness for protection than they did the barrier of their gate or stone enclosure. Griff pivoted his hip against the thigh-high fence and slung his legs over one at a time, taking care not to jostle Isabel as he jumped to the ground on the other side and ran across the space of the small courtyard.

  “Please!” he shouted as he neared the tight huddle of buildings. “Someone! We need help!”

  The drone of chanting was the only reply. Griffin followed the sound past the stables and almonry, then down a trellis-enclosed, narrow walkway lined with climbing rosebushes and worn from the treads of countless sandaled feet that had made the short trek toward the chapel at its end. Griff’s heels dug into the hard-packed earth, his boots and spurs chewing up the path with each long stride.

  He ran the last few steps to the chapel door and scarcely paused before kicking it open. The old oak panel swung wide, banging against the wall. Daylight poured inside, illuminating the windowless, candlelit chapel peopled with more than a score of kneeling monks, their tonsured heads bowed in prayerful chant but a moment ago and now turned on the stranger who filled the doorway of their private sanctuary. A stranger who stood before them dripping wet, panting, face taut with worry, holding a half-naked, unconscious woman in his arms.

  “This lady has been injured,” Griffin said to the slack-jawed, gaping assembly of holy men, too grim to trifle with apologies for disrupting the assembly. “Please. She needs help.”

  For a long moment, no one moved. Then the monk at the head of the group gave a nod to one of the brothers and a slim cleric rose in silence from his place on the floor. Head bowed, the young monk walked toward Griffin and motioned for him to follow. Griff fell in behind, carrying Isabel down one winding corridor and then another, until finally the novice stopped and indicated a small chamber off the hallway.

  He pointed to a modest pallet situated inside. Griffin carried Isabel in and laid her gently on the thin straw mattress. As an afterthought, he tugged the mantle together to cover her, as if the wet wool was any source of warmth. As if it could hide the fact that he had brought her there naked, half dying as a result of his inadequate care. Shamed, Griffin turned back to face the young monk.

  “She was hit by a crossbow bolt yesterday. It grazed her arm,” he said, gesturing to her and feeling a stab of angu
ish for how small and pale she looked on the humble bed. “I did what I could to clean and bind it, but this morning …” He shook his head, swallowing past a knot of dread that clogged his throat. “I don’t know how long she’s been fevered. A few hours, perhaps. But the wound is festering.”

  The novice’s gaze was sympathetic, devoid of condemnation. Still, Griffin found it hard not to blame himself for Isabel’s condition. He should have sought help immediately. He had seen enough soldiers die in fevered agony from injuries less severe than Isabel’s; he never should have risked trying to tend her on his own. If she died … God’s love, if she died, he did not think he could bear it.

  “Can you help her?” he demanded of the silent cleric, watching in helpless frustration as the monk knelt down beside the pallet and gingerly inspected Isabel’s arm. “I must know if you can help her.”

  A moment passed without response, a moment during which Griffin could only close his eyes and plead with God to show him some scrap of mercy. The monk came up off the floor in a faint rustle of robes, his expression placid, maddeningly indiscernible. With one hand outstretched, he nodded to Griffin, indicating the open door.

  “No. I’m not leaving her,” Griff growled. “Heal her, but heal her where I can watch you.”

  The young monk stared apologetically but maintained his stance. He blinked slowly at Griffin, waiting patiently for him to accept the terms of his help.

  “My son,” a gentle voice called from the corridor outside. Griff turned to find the elder monk standing at the threshold, his hands tucked into the wide bells of his sleeves. “Time is fleeting. We should leave the good brother to his work.”

  Griffin cast a final glance at Isabel, then reluctantly allowed himself to be walked to the door. Once outside, the oak panel sealing him off from the room, Griff turned, pressing his head and splayed palms against the rough wood, idly watching as water dripped from his wet hair and tunic to splash on the floor at his feet.