by Ann Lawrence
Meara nodded. “O’ course, Lady Margaret’s been dead these many years. Saw less o’ ‘er than we ever did o’ Lord Gilles in the years ‘is father were alive. ‘Ated it ‘ere she did. She loved court, the gowns, the fine folk there,” Meara continued. “Bein’ ye might know some o’ them fine folk yerself, Mistress.”
“Me?” Emma whipped around to stare at the serving woman.
“Oh, aye. Ye can’t hide quality. Ye might ‘ave ‘oles in yer shift, beggin’ yer pardon, but ye’ve a certain way about ye.”
Emma forced herself to smile. Whatever she might have been when her father and mother had lived, she had fallen far since. “I’m no better than you, Meara.”
“As ye wish, Mistress.” Meara shrugged and then prattled on about Lady Margaret and her silk gowns and miniver-lined mantles.
Emma did not comment, for she’d been taught by her mother that gossiping was not ladylike. But I may no longer call myself a lady. I am of Meara’s station now. A free woman mayhap, but of the lowest station, nonetheless, my stature lost through untimely death and ill luck. The thought further squeezed her throat. She had not yet accepted the fact that despite her parents’ best efforts, she, their beloved daughter, lived from hand to mouth.
“Once ‘is lordship’s son Nicholas went to foster in King ‘Enry’s court, she wouldn’t stay ‘ere when Lord Gilles were off wiv the old king. ‘Ated the old lord, she did. Couldna abide this place and bein’ alone wiv his lordship’s father.” Meara lowered her voice and grinned slyly. “Twas said she ‘ad a lover at court.” She sniffed. “Only deigned to grace us wiv ‘er presence when Lord Gilles demanded she do ‘er duty. Cried at nothing, she did, if I do say so. Quick wiv a pinch, too, deserved or not.” Meara bustled about gathering up wet cloths and the precious block of soap, which she put into a wooden box. “I keeps ‘er chambers clean, ye understand, God rest ‘er soul, but empty rooms be musty—no matter ye sweep ‘em daily. Yer to lie yerself down ‘ere ‘til the beddin’s changed.”
Emma did not wish to picture the ghostly Lady Margaret. As she gingerly sat on the edge of Lord Gilles’ bed, she turned the conversation. “You say his lordship has a son?”
“Oh, aye. Just the one. A bonny lad. Married, ‘e did this past spring. ‘E holds one o’ ‘is lordship’s keeps down the coast. Seaswept, by name.” Meara shivered. “Now there’s a bitter place to be in winter!”
At the thought of winter, Emma shivered too, then snuggled into Lord Gilles’ mattress, surely stuffed with goosedown and not common straw. She made a place for herself and rubbed her cheek on the edge of his bed linens. His linens. His scent. A tiny shiver coursed through her.
Emma rolled abruptly to her side to banish her thoughts. She drew Angelique close, curling herself into a tiny ball, the child at the center. She would not allow her mind to dwell on such a man as Lord Gilles, a man with a married son, a wealthy baron with at least two estates. He lived in a world now as beyond her reach as the dust motes Angelique tried to catch.
‘Twas a falsehood that her gentle father, a knight of Baron Ramsey’s household, had wished her to wed Jacob Baker. Still fate had taken that gentle knight before he’d penned his wishes. She’d been destined by her uncle’s wardship to no higher than the baker, a man with one cheating hand on the scale and the other wandering where it shouldn’t.
Tears gathered. She fought them. But as she lay in Lord Gilles’ bed of luxury, each fiber touched her skin and teased her senses with the reality of her situation in life. She sank into misery. Lord Gilles’ own words, spoken two years before, had ofttimes haunted her in the lonely night and came back to haunt her anew.
Few men of quality will have you without your virtue intact…
In truth, no man of quality would have her now. Nor, if she desired another, could she have him. She’d said her vows, plighted her troth. ‘Twas done, acknowledged or not.
Emma’s head ached, her leg throbbed. She no longer felt the sensual surfaces, she felt only shame and regret for how she’d allowed her life to go awry.
She said her nightly prayers, first one of thanksgiving for Angelique and the second one a prayer to ask forgiveness for not using her wisdom to hold herself innocent for some man who would honor her gift. Last, she offered a lengthy prayer that Angelique and she might survive the coming winter. She closed her eyes a moment, then whispered a quick word to God on Lord Gilles’ behalf for saving their lives.
What seemed moments later, but was actually more than an hour, Meara roused Emma from a deep sleep.
“I dreamt I lay upon a cloud.” Emma yawned and stretched, letting her hand stroke over the bed furs for a final time before rising.
“‘Tis surely the closest to a cloud in this keep, although Lord Gilles would be just as content below wiv ‘is men.” Meara smiled.
Emma scooped up Angelique and, wrapping her mantle about them, she followed Meara to a smaller but equally luxurious chamber, just two turns up the stone stair from Lord Gilles’. They moved slowly, Meara’s hand under Emma’s elbow as she limped along.
The bed hangings in Lady Margaret’s chamber were the color of a summer sky. The linens were embroidered with lilies and butterflies. The chamber chilled her, as did the bedclothes, so she curled her toes and tucked her feet into the hem of the borrowed shift. The glowing brazier had not yet dispelled the dampness of a chamber long closed.
“No one lives here, Angelique,” Emma whispered, sensing no ghosts, no remnant of the lady who had once sat at the small table across the chamber and used the ivory comb that still lay on a silver tray. “Lady Margaret has been gone for a long time.” Emma tucked Angelique into the crook of her arm and, despite the throb in her head and leg, she fell into a deep sleep.
* * * * *
Gilles stripped naked and slipped into his bed. He settled into a hollow of particular warmth where a feminine form had slept. He became aroused by the warmth of the space. The sweet scent of lavender soap entwined him in a seductive web. His mind conjured Emma in his bed, fresh from her bath. He remembered the press of her full breasts against her thin shift and the dusky hint of a nipple barely suggested. Gilles fought his arousal because he denied his attraction to Emma, denied that bringing her to his chamber meant anything other than Christian charity.
He reminded himself that Emma was wounded and that the most likely place for her to rest would be in the warmest place in the keep. He tried to convince himself that his arousal meant naught, ‘twas just a coincidence.
Gilles lost the battle with his logic, closed his eyes, and let his imagination roam. He stretched her out in a field of intoxicating lavender. His imagination cupped her lush breasts, learned their shape, traced the sweep of her hips, and stroked the smooth length of her thighs. With a bewitching clarity, he thought he could scent her arousal. He took a shuddering breath.
“Sweet heaven,” he whispered to the night. His chest tightened, his whole body shivered. Turning over to his stomach, he forced himself to think of something bland and martial. He contemplated fighting techniques until he ruefully admitted that his contemplations were lasciviously filled with swords being sheathed and lances being couched. At least it brought his humor back, and his humor brought peace.
At last, he slept.
* * * * *
Long before creepers of light slipped beneath his shutters, Gilles arose. He dressed hurriedly, pulling on what lay at hand, black wool and black linen. With a haste to his stride that betrayed his eagerness, he flew down the steep stone steps and into the hall. Ignoring the yawning servants who were set to the task of assembling the many tables needed for the daily meals, Gilles spread out a large roll of vellum on an oak table and looked over the plans to his stable addition.
He did not make his way to the bailey when the ring of metal on metal told him a dawn workout progressed as scheduled. Instead, he remained standing over his plans.
Gilles knew immediately when Emma made her appearance. He sensed her first. A flush of warmth swept through hi
m. With a forced nonchalance, he lifted his eyes. She hesitated on the lowest step of the stone stairs that led to the tower chambers before coming toward him. He waited on the raised flagstone hearth before the mammoth fireplace in which could be roasted a full boar. With hands braced on the table, anchoring the plans, he watched her come. Her limp made her progress slow, giving him ample time to drink in her appearance: her compelling eyes and her honey-colored hair, now tamed in braids that fell on her breasts. The child still slumbered at peace on her mother’s shoulder.
A pink blush stained Emma’s cheeks. Gilles thought of roses, full-blown summer roses, petals spread, offering their fragrance to the warm air.
He sensed no fear as she approached him. The lack of apprehension made a tightness in his chest uncoil. So many shied from him, gave him respect tinged with a healthy dose of fear for his position and his power over their lives. A sudden desire to grin swept through him and he gave in to it.
Emma came eagerly now, smiling back, not watching the floor as servants were wont to do. She met his eyes with a vibrant joy as if they had some secret between them.
“Good day, my lord,” she greeted him, shifting Angelique to her uninjured side and dropping into a lopsided curtsy.
“Mistress Emma.” He savored the feel of her name on his tongue.
“Lord Gilles, I wish to thank you for saving our lives.”
“‘Twas nothing.” Could she hear the seduction in his tone? He prayed his voice did not betray him, for it sounded hoarse to him, plagued with lust for her sweetness, an elusive scent on his mind. How ridiculous he felt—beguiled by the scent of a woman lingering on his bedding.
Their eyes met. “You are mistaken, my lord. ‘Twas everything.”
“What do you call your babe?” He moved to her and because ‘twould be unseemly to touch her, he placed his hand a moment on the child’s head. Aware even that small gesture betrayed him, he turned and resumed his place of power on the dais.
“I have named her Angelique, my lord.”
“Why does your husband allow you to wander unprotected?” Gilles could not prevent his voice from growing cold and abrupt. Her face registered the change in his tone. Her smile died, her marvelous eyes dropped, and her hands plucked at the child’s woolen wrap.
“I have no husband who acknowledges me, my lord.”
Her choice of words puzzled him. “Explain yourself.”
She took a breath and drew the child closer to her. “The man with whom I exchanged vows chooses to deny them—and us.”
“It does not trouble you to tell me this?”
She lifted her head, her chin rose. “I have learned that to shrink from truth is to face it later in a more difficult guise.”
“I see… Then who looks to your care?” A sudden heat rose on his cheeks.
“I look to my own care, my lord,” Emma said softly. “Should you check your ledgers, you will see that I paid my sixpence fine.”
“I have no memory of your coming before me.”
“You were in York then, my lord. Your steward saw to the matter.”
A thrill of excitement clutched at him.
She was, for all intents and purposes, unprotected.
He could not speak. Her seductive presence left him speechless like Hubert was when in the presence of Beatrice, a buxom serving wench with saucy blonde curls and a wide smile. With difficulty, Gilles cleared his throat. “I had thought you smitten with love after your last appearance before me.”
He waited. Her eyes did not avoid his, but a sweetness fled them as the sun flees before a black storm cloud. “I no longer believe in love, my lord.”
“I see.” Abandoned. He stroked his hand over his close-cropped black beard. A curious sympathy made him gentle with her. Love was a jongleur’s game. He’d never felt its snare, nor believed in its lure. Yet he felt a curious sadness that this lovely young woman should feel as he did, he who was a generation older in wisdom and hard living. “I am sorry for it.”
She did not respond. She shifted her child and he watched the soft tint of color on her cheeks become large blotches of unbecoming red. “If I may go, my lord? I have need to return to my weaving. I’ve a piece promised that needs finishing.”
Nothing could have prepared him for the hammer of his blood in his veins. He wanted to reach out and seize her, hold her, keep her—slake his lust in her. Her tall stance, her brave look, her lithe figure drew him. He wanted to hold her before him, drink her in, trace the shape of her face with his fingertips, know again the warmth of her breast beneath his hand. ‘Twas a madness. He’d gone too long without a woman ‘twas all.
Emma still wore her gentian mantle although the color had faded and the hem was worn. Gilles thought the color perfect on her. It had lodged in his mind, never to be forgotten. He thought her hair like gold spun from a magic distaff. Unbound, he imagined it would fall over her shoulders and down to her waist in ripples of silk; he yearned to bury his hands in it. His blood boiled to possess her. He searched for some way to hold her before him.
“You speak well for a weaver.” Jesu. He sounded like a mewling page, and condescending to boot.
A curious smile, at once rueful and self-mocking, touched her mouth. “My father did not realize my mother’s lessons would one day be needed to stave off starvation.”
“Your father was…?” he asked. He cared not a whit who had sired her.
“Sir Edmund Aethelwin, my lord.”
“An old name. A knight, you say?”
She nodded. “First of Baron Ramsey’s house, then a free lance when Baron Ramsey died. Unfortunately for my mother and me, as Papa grew older he did not do well on the road.” She recounted her story with no emotion in her voice. “As his fortunes fell, we had need to leave our home. My father settled us with his brother Simon until he might recoup his losses. He fell in a tourney in France ere he could return to us.”
“Your mother taught you to weave?” Gilles scrambled about in his brain for something to hold her before him as she appeared poised for flight.
“Aye, I learned at my mother’s knee, my lord. She had a canny hand for spinning as well, but disappeared when—”
Sorrow tinged her voice, and she busied herself tucking a small blanket about her daughter’s shoulders.
Gilles resisted a powerful need to offer her comfort. Somehow her grief reached him. “When?” he prompted gently.
She met his gaze as a knight’s fine lady would. “When my father’s brother tried to force her into wedlock with him. Simon said she walked into the sea one night. I believe he killed her when she scorned his suit and so put about the other story to spare himself the hangman’s noose. He had beaten her many times, and oft lost control of himself.”
It was not pity she wanted from him. He read it in her stalwart stance and direct gaze. “Did anyone question your mother’s fate?” he asked. “Why was this matter not brought to my attention?”
“‘Twas before your time here, my lord.”
“Then surely my father—” he began.
“I brought the matter to his cleric’s attention. a penniless weaver’s fate is not of much note. A man’s word is gold to the base metal of a woman’s voice.”
And so lay the gap betwixt lord and vassal and men and women. Gilles knew his father would have thought little of a woman’s accusations in comparison to a man’s protestations of innocence. He had ofttimes seen his father beat his own mother for little more than a meal ill-prepared by the servants. The sight had nourished a hatred for his father, and as a consequence, he’d never raised a hand against a woman in his life.
“What of your uncle, this Simon?”
“He died of a seizure not long after he sent me to…seek my own way.”
Cast out—as he had predicted. The thought sat ill with him.
She broke into his thoughts. “May I go, my lord?”
“You may go.” He choked it out. The results were devastating. Emma made a curtsy and turned away. With halti
ng steps, she crossed the great expanse of rush-strewn flagstone between him and the iron-strapped doors that led to the bailey.
With the closing of the door, Gilles realized he might never see her again. He had not asked her where she dwelt. One step was all he took from the raised hearth before sense asserted itself and he returned to his plans.
A youth would run after a maid. Knighted barons did not run after weavers. The lord of the keep had more reserve, more dignity than that. He clutched the table’s edge to hold himself in place. At last his hands relaxed and he straightened, smoothing the vellum before him and forcing his attention to his stables.
She did not dwell in his world.
Chapter Four
Emma picked her way through the crowds of men and women who were going about their daily chores in the inner bailey of Hawkwatch Castle. Children dashed before her limping steps as she finally passed through the lower bailey to the gate. She called a greeting to the gatekeeper as she crossed the drawbridge that allowed access to a beaten path down a steep hill.
The castle was built upon a high promontory overlooking Hawkwatch Bay, soaring up as if thrust from the very earth. Thick outer stone walls surrounded the castle. ‘Twas King Richard’s father, old King Henry himself, who’d ordered the fortifications that had made Hawkwatch a vast fortress to protect the royal interests from marauders who might come from across the North Sea.
Clustered about the sheer walls of local stone were other huts and hovels like Emma’s. It took her twice as long as usual to make her limping way through the village to her hut. Pain shot up her leg with every step. Angelique seemed to weigh as much as a child twice her size. With a sigh of something akin to sadness, Emma stepped over her threshold. In the broad light of day, ‘twas much shabbier and ruder than she cared to admit. With just pallet and stool, Emma had almost no room for the simple upright loom propped against the rear stone wall. Many small pots and bowls held plants and barks for dyeing. Their myriad scents filled the air and soothed Emma’s troubled mind.
