The Protector

by Becca St. John

“How can I?” Doreena whined, “When I cannot so much as go to sew, lestt she be there with snakes and potions. I cannot live within my own home without fear of her witchery!”

  Margaret moved around Veri, to kneel down beside her sister. She wrapped Doreena in her arms.

  “Go away, Veri, least you are prepared for greater challenges than you already face.” She warned.

  “But I need her to know I would not harm her. I would never have betrayed her!”

  “It matters not, sister,” Margaret ordered, as Roland came down the stairs.

  “Come with me, Veri. Come to our rooms,” he urged.

  “Roland,” she looked up to him, pleaded with him, as they mounted the stairs, “Why do you make me stay here? Why do you make me stay?”

  “Oh, Veri, love,” he shook his head sadly, “I cannot explain, but please, don’t ask to be sent away. God forgive me, but I cannot do that.”

  Roland held Veri close to his side, as they moved down the passageway to their rooms. Neither spoke until he opened the door to his chamber, startling Hannah.

  “Roland.” Hannah spoke first.

  She’d been standing in the center of the chamber, hands empty.

  “What do you need, what can I get for you?”

  “Looking for your lady wife, but I see she is with you.”

  “Do you need to speak to her now?”

  “No, it can wait.” She dipped her head, left the room. Cwen came to the doorway that separated rooms.

  “Did Lady Hannah speak with you?” Roland asked.

  “No,” Cwen’s eyes shifted to the door. “Is that who was in this chamber? I thought it was you.”

  “Me?”

  “Aye,” her large wide, “when the door opened.”

  Veri moved over to the doorway, took Cwen’s hands, rubbing them to ease the trembling. “You’ve done no wrong, Cwen.”

  The girl shrugged. “I didna’ know she was there.” And shuddered.

  “She won’t hurt you, Cwen. She just wanted Lord Roland.”

  Without looking up, the girl nodded. They all remembered the viper.

  Veri caught Roland’s eye, as she asked. “When was it, Cwen, when you heard the door?”

  The girl looked back into the other room, stood straighter, gathered her thoughts. “I had just started sewing the hem of a sleeve when I heard it open.”

  “And how much has been done on it?” Roland asked.

  “All of it, m’Lord. It’s done now.”

  Veri brushed the worry away. “Ah, you have been toiling away. Why don’t you take some time to yourself.”

  “Thank you, m’lady,” she bobbed a curtsey and rushed to leave.

  “Roland,” Veri touched the sleeve of his surcoat, “have Hannah come to me, when she is able.”

  “I’ll deal with Hannah.”

  “Yes, but I wish a new maid.”

  “Cwen is not to your liking?”

  “She is afraid, Roland, and not of me but of her place. We shall see if two maids might not ease that. If not, then we will give her other tasks.”

  “I will deal with Hannah.” He reiterated.

  “Aye, and I will deal with my maids.” And do what I must to ensure their safety. But she did not say as much to Roland, for he felt protection was his role alone.

  CHAPTER 9 ~ HIDDEN MISSIVES

  Once again, Roland believed her asleep. She watched him move about her chamber, an ignored missive in one hand. With a large poker, he prodded a large, charred log in the fireplace. Flames shot up, devoured the middle, until it broke in half. He kicked the ends toward each other, fire eagerly climbing onto the new wood. The room brightened, heated, though it was his nearness that warmed Veri, far more than the fire he tended so earnestly

  Veri bit back a sigh, lest he sense her wakefulness.

  Although he never acknowledged the clammy cold of the castle, now he knelt before the welcome heat, using the added light to look at the letter he held. It didn’t hold his attention long before he turned toward her, a wedge of shadow shifting, showing only half of him. His eyes, alive and intense, shined within the darkness.

  She’d gone to bed, cocooned herself with the bed curtains closed. They were now open. Roland’s doing, no doubt, looking down upon her as she slept.

  What did he think about? What made him so intense, so searching, as though all his thoughts were on her, despite challenges far greater than she presented. He had a domain to control. A land left with too little rule between father’s death and son’s return.

  His eyes spoke of loneliness, his expression warned. He believed she embodied his fulfillment. Impossible. She could not do it, could not be all he wanted her to be. Yet she dared to dream. What if her love could fill him?

  Love.

  The thought shook her. Was it true? What they’d shared in the past, had it blended into something new? A shift and change of bonds seeded in youth? Was that why she hungered for his presence, missed him when he was not there, knew, so certainly, when he entered a room?

  It did not blind her to his faults, his stubborn ideals, his attempts to control her life, the people of his domain. Despite them, she found a worth in the effort to have him as part of her life.

  If she had wanted to leave, to truly leave, she could have. Of that, Veri had no doubt. She was, if nothing else, resourceful.

  The memory of him drew her back, but it was the reality that held her. She loved him as she had never loved. Loved him far differently than she loved Mother Rose or Father Kenneth or even Cin.

  She loved him. Roland. In a way that boded well for husband and wife. Frightening thought. It forced her deeper into the covers.

  She did not love Oakland and he did not want the woman she had become, would crush her with his need for the child she had been.

  “Roland,” she whispered, surprising them both. She’d had no intention of speaking.

  “You are awake?” He moved toward her, away from the fire and the light it cast. He pushed the bed curtains back as far as they would go, held up his letter.

  “What is this?”

  She lifted up, reached for it. “Ah, yes” and looked up at him, to see just what he thought. “I borrowed paper from you. A quill, ink.” Would he forbid that, too?

  “You drew this?” He sat upon the bed, hip to hip with her.

  “Is it not allowed?” He didn’t answer, just studied her drawing of a plant.

  “A man of science could not do better.” He met her eyes.

  “It is what I did at the convent. My gift, they said, drawing the plants. We were building a book, so others would know how to use plants.”

  She’d startled him, his stare hard, intense. “Can you write?” He shook off his own question. “Of course you can. You are a singular woman.”

  “Is it forbidden?”

  He rose. “No, but please, keep it here. Others will not so easily trust a woman who writes.” He put the page back on her work table before sitting back down again, his mood having shifted beyond her work, her papers.

  “I had not wished to wake you. You need your rest.”

  Gently, as she would ease a fretful child, she soothed the crease between his brows. “And you? Should you not be sleeping as well?”

  He took her hand, held it, and rested it upon his chest, his own hand stroking the length of her bare arm. A caress. “I cannot,” he admitted, though she saw the sleepiness in his eyes, lids half lowered. Watchful yet resting.

  “For worry?” She queried.

  He chuckled, shook his head, leaned across her legs, braced himself by an elbow.

  Their eyes met.

  Much could be read in one’s eyes. Lies could be seen, fear, confusion. Love. But his eyes were hooded, unreadable.

  His humor vanished with her scrutiny, replaced with concern.

  “By worry,” he admitted, and looked less weary than he had when he first sat beside her. This new energy, forceful in its wake, upset the easiness she’d felt as a mere spectator.
/>   She sat up, covers held close against her chest. “Have I caused this worry?” She asked.

  “No,” Roland adjusted her pillows. His touch lingered as he settled her back against the fluffed down softness. A quill pierced through the ticking, scratched, yet all she could think of was their touch. Rough, manly hands against silken female flesh.

  Unsettling.

  His paternal care elicited thoughts of nakedness. Her nakedness. Throughout her life, she’d slept without clothes, yet now, suddenly, the keenness of it echoed through her. Should she go to bed fully clothed? Absurd.

  Yet the awareness disconcerted in its newness. She drew her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms about her legs, and curled into herself.

  Roland rose. He, too, had been unsettled. Despite the shadows, she’d seen it in those eyes of his.

  “Veri,” he stood in the alcove where he’d opened a shutter, to look out at the night sky. It was clear, the stars visible beyond his shoulder.

  “I have need to visit Edgewood and Glenhaven Manors.” Roland kept his voice low, as if others slept within the room and he wished not to waken them. “They are the two manors most in need of overseeing. My other lands will wait.” Another log broke within the fire on a shower of sparks. Roland crossed to it, pushed the embers back into the hearth with his booted foot.

  Veri watched, waited, knowing there was more.

  “I will not leave for another fortnight, possibly a month.”

  “You will not take me?”

  He looked to the ceiling, his chest filling with a deep draught of air, which hissed out on a breath. “We have yet to make that decision.”

  “We?”

  “Myself. My men.”

  “I see,” she frowned thoughtfully. Their decision would be based upon the effects to her reputation. “You will let me know?”

  He nodded, watched her, perhaps surprised that she hadn’t asked to go with him or, in the least, have a say in the verdict. In truth, she did not know if she wanted to go with him. There was much she could accomplish with his absence. Tend to those in need. Aid the ailing. Besides, as much as his presence delighted her, it also disturbed. She needed him gone so she could think on this, turn it to a lesson.

  For now, only one concern claimed her.

  “Roland,” she ventured.

  “Aye?” He came back to the bed, to sit facing her once more.

  “I have a question to ask you.”

  “Aye?”

  “My menses has come and gone.” He turned away, proving the topic not to his liking. He would want an heir. “That means I am not with child.”

  Once again, he nodded. A silent answer.

  “I would like to be with child.” He hissed in a breath as though burned by one of those loose sparks in the fire, distanced himself, as the words still tumbled from her lips.

  Confused, she continued, “we must . . .”

  “I will not give you a child, Veri.”

  “But we are husband and wife!” She rose to her knees, thought to go after him, follow him about the room if need be. Anything to get him to look at her, discuss this.

  He looked to her then. Veri upon her knees, her covers held at her waist.

  “Nay!” His agitation a live thing, that billowed between them. “Cover yourself! You will catch a chill!” He went to her, eased her back against the pillows, lifted the covers to her neck. “You must keep yourself covered.” His brusque words in direct opposition to his gentle touch. Callused fingers, a butterfly’s caress, brushed at a strand of hair crossing her cheek.

  He reached into her tumbled mass of hair, combed it with his fingers, fascinated as it fell in waves back to the pillow.

  His eyes took on that look, drowsy, intent, all in one. Veri watched as his face came closer to her’s, until sensation overruled her awareness. She lowered her eyelashes, so sensitive she felt the brush of them upon her cheeks, the caress of his breath, the growing warmth as his head lowered slowly, coming closer and closer.

  He was going to kiss her; she knew it, felt it deep inside. His lips were going to touch her lips, press against them, and she would feel the weight of his body upon her. Amazed that she should feel wonder, excitement.

  But all that came was a cooling breeze as he pulled away.

  Where had he gone? Eyes wide with shock and dismay she looked at him. He hadn’t left the bed, though he had pulled away, wary and sorrowful.

  Had he not felt the same needs as she? Had he not yearned for the touch, the closeness? Was he not curious? The image beckoned, of their bodies touching, their hands exploring each other’s flesh.

  She’d touched a thousand people in healing, yet never felt anything that resembled what coursed through her this evening.

  “What happened?” She asked, relishing the simple contact, as he reached out to trace the frown formed between her eyes, much as she had done to him moments before.

  “I took your maidenhead, Veri,” he told her, skirting past questions of a forfeited kiss. “You are no longer a virgin but I did not spill my seed. It would have been more painful. You suffered enough.”

  “It will not be painful next time. I have been told by others that it only hurts the once.”

  “Veri,” he faced her, the fire casting his face in shadow, exaggerating his sternness. “I have made a vow. I will not touch you as I did that night. Never again.”

  “Never?”

  He would not look at her.

  “But I want a child,” she told him, bewildered and confused that he would refuse her such a simple request. It was not an unnatural act. Married couples came together to make a babe. She knew of this. It was the way of things. Two became three and then four and so forth. Babes were a blessing. What made it not so for them?

  “Roland,” she insisted once more, “I want a babe, a child of my own.”

  The fire held his focus. He refused to look directly into her eyes. “There is naught I can do about that, Lady Wife. I will be your husband in name only.”

  “In name only?” She sat forward, stunned by the full force of what he meant. “Who will you turn to for a wife? What woman will ease your needs?”

  At his sharp glance she nodded, “I know of such things. I know of how desperately a man seeks release. So much so they will kidnap, rape.” Her chest rose and fell with anger, fueled by breaths too shallow to fulfill, too quick to ease. “Why do you not turn to your wife? We are to be one. How will that . . .”

  He silenced her, stood beside her bed, his finger to her lips. “Hush, little one, hush,” he crooned.

  “I am a woman, Roland, not a child, not a little one!”

  “You are a fragile little thing to me.” He argued.

  “But I don’t . . .” she tried again.

  “Sshhh,” he whispered, “sshhh. This will be easier for you, Veri. You are too gentle and good. Even if it weren’t for my vow, I would not taint you with lessons of lust.”

  “It is no sin between husband and wife,” she argued, too much like a child pleading. She did not want him to see her as a child.

  But he spoke as if she were beneath the understanding of an adult. “My hunger for you would overwhelm all that you are; your innocence, your purity. I will not have it. I will not allow it.”

  “But I desire a child.”

  “We will find you one. There are many who have no need of their babes. Many who will give us one. We will offer a handsome reward.”

  She looked to him, eyes wide with confusion.

  “You would buy a child?”

  Roland sat, scooped her into his hold, pulling her onto his lap, blankets and all.

  “I would do whatever must be done to please you, wife.”

  “Then you will give me your seed.”

  He said nothing.

  “Will you?”

  “Nay.”

  She felt the shifting of his chin, against her crown, as he shook his head. “Nay, that is one thing I cannot give you. I have vowed to God, to all that is holy
. I cannot release myself from that bond.”

  “Roland?”

  He kissed the top of her head, rested his cheek where his lips had been. “What?”

  “If this is your wish, why must I stay? Why can I not leave?”

  “Veri, I will not answer that.” As he rose, he settled her upon the bed. “Just trust that I am working to amend the danger.”

  “If not for a wife, why did you come here tonight? To my room?”

  Roland crossed to the doorway, held the latch as he turned to Veri.

  “My brother’s wife, widow, has arrived at Oakland.”

  “Cynthia?”

  “You know of her?”

  “I remember, from before.”

  “Good.” He paused, thoughtfully, before turning toward her once again. “Be careful, Veri. Do not let her harm you. If she makes you feel ill at ease, tell me. I will send her away.”

  “You are family.”

  “By marriage. She has her mother, her brothers.”

  “You should not turn her away.”

  “Veri,” Roland announced, “I will turn anyone away, whom I feel will harm you.”

  She wanted to ask more of this. To ask why Cynthia might try to hurt her, but he gave her no time. Before she could find her words, he was on the other side of the portal, softly lowering the latch into place.

  **********

  Mist rose, muffling sounds, dampening the world. Veri moved through it, quietly, quickly. She knew someone followed her. Someone always followed her, but none could fault her visiting the chapel upon waking. ‘Twas not uncommon to pray before first mass.

  If it alarmed them that she rose long before Roland, so be it. That she should leave their chambers while he still slumbered was not her trial. Let them worry. Let them trace her steps if they could, in this mist as heavy and somber as her thoughts.

  Disoriented, she nearly missed the chapel, coming upon it at the corner of the building. She remained close, placing her hand on the rough stone, edging her way to the front. The heavy oak door creaked eerily into the gloom as she opened it and slipped inside. Candles alight revealed a figure kneeling in the front pew.

  Veri dipped her fingers in the basin of holy water, crossed herself, curtsied low in subjection as she started down the narrow aisle. The sound of her slippers, upon the stone floor, alerted the other supplicant, for Veri saw the head lift, the cowl of her hood turn, as though seeking more sounds before bending again in prayer once more. Veri sat behind and across from the other reverent, trying to see who it was who had risen so early, but ‘twas no use.