‘Aye,’ she replied miserably, lying down again. Was it really that obvious? That no man had ever touched her? Why, the way he said it, it was if the words were painted on her face: virgin. She curled on to her side into a tight, little ball, away from him, spreading her cloak over her knees, her feet, to ward off the evening chill.
Something was digging into his right hip, Bastien thought, as he tried to find a good position to sleep in. He had slept fitfully, but now found himself wide awake, his limbs cramped and stiff. Or was the mound of hay too short? His legs dangled over the edge, squeezing his calf muscles. Or was it, he thought, as he drew himself into a sitting position, that he had become, in such short a time, used to home comforts again, to sleeping on a soft mattress after all these years of sleeping in makeshift beds?
On the other side of the barn, Alice’s sleeping form snared his sweeping perusal. Her dark cloak was tucked around her, demurely, with a glint of her blonde hair shining above her face. And despite her best efforts, she had turned to face him in her sleep, her hands tucked under one cheek, as if in prayer. He recalled the deftness of those hands as she treated the woman, her whole manner practised, efficient, assured. Her skill seemed to surpass her years—why, she could not be above twenty winters. How different she was from the bumbling physicians who had accompanied them in France, the botched operations, the screams of pain. Somehow, you couldn’t imagine such things happening with her; you would always feel safe in her hands, however dire the situation.
Her eyes shot open, dark lashes fanning her flushed cheeks. ‘What’s amiss?’ She raised herself on one arm, staring at him, flustered.
‘Rest easy, maid.’ His velvet tones soothed her. ‘You’ve only been asleep for a couple of hours.’
‘Then why did you wake me up?’ she glared at him, grumpy, wrinkling her nose. Her face was soft with sleep.
He shook his head. ‘You woke yourself up.’ He sat, resting his elbows on his knees, relaxed.
‘Can you not sleep?’ she asked, pulling her cloak around her, tucking her hands in under the cloth. A chill draught blew in under the gap made by the ill-fitting door; her fingers were like ice.
Bastien picked up a long thread of dried grass, began winding it around one finger. ‘I was thinking about what you did back there…for the woman.’
She smiled, imbuing her whole face with a sweet look. ‘I shouldn’t let that keep you awake…it was nothing.’
He raised his eyebrows, slashes of dark brown. ‘You underestimate your own skills. I know of no other woman who would do what you did.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m not like other women. It drives my mother to distraction…but I am fortunate to have a father who is prepared to teach me all he knows.’
‘What about brothers…or sisters?’ He found he wanted to find out more about this puzzling maid, to discover what drove her.
Alice bit her lip, a raft of sorrow sweeping through her. ‘I have an older brother,’ she replied lightly. ‘Thomas. He taught me to ride. At the moment…well, he’s still in France.’
‘Surely he would have returned by now,’ Bastien replied without thinking, then saw the bruised look on her face and wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
Alice dropped her chin to her knees, crouching down. ‘We…we’re not quite sure where he is,’ she informed him quietly.
Bastien said nothing. Any reply would have sounded trite, insincere. He knew, and he felt that she knew as well, that her older brother was dead. Too much time had passed since the end of the war in France; her brother would have been home by now, even if he had returned on foot.
‘What about you?’ Alice broke the silence, grateful to him for not voicing her own fears about her brother.
He tilted his golden head to one side, concentrating on unwinding the piece of straw from his forefinger, watching the red blood flow back into his fingertip. ‘What about me?’
‘Do you have any siblings?’
Her question hung in the fragile, hushed air of the barn.
‘Not now.’ His voice changed: a gruff burr.
‘Not ever?’ she asked, softly persistent.
He glared at her, teetering on the brink of trust. He never talked about Guillaume. Never. ‘Are you normally this curious?’
‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’ Her large, limpid eyes drank in the lean lines of his face.
‘I had a brother,’ Bastien found himself saying. His voice sounded overly brittle, bright. ‘He was older than me by two years, a great knight. He was killed in a fight, a skirmish near our lands…’ His voice trailed off, his eyes hollow and bleak.
‘What happened to you?’ she whispered into the shadowy twilight.
‘I mislaid my breast-plate. Guillame, my older brother, the more experienced fighter, loaned me his.’ Bastien shook his head, as if in disbelief. ‘It wasn’t even a battle, just a stupid argument with some local ruffians. Guillame was stabbed in the chest; there was nothing I could do.’ His voice shook, knotted with the memory: the blood on his hands, the unmoving form of his brother.
Horrified, Alice stared at his rigid features, the tight line of his mouth, trying to see what he had seen, trying to understand. ‘God in Heaven, Bastien. I had no idea.’
His eyes narrowed on her, sharp, piercing. ‘Why would you? You scarce know me.’ The sympathy in her voice gouged at him, tearing back the thick layers of protection he had built around himself, peeling them back to expose the very rawness of his soul. He shrugged his shoulders, a note of dismissal in his voice. ‘Forget it. It happened a long time ago.’
Yet it still haunted his every waking moment, she could see that now. In the chill hush of the barn, lit only by fragments of moonlight sneaking through the rough planking, she felt close to him, amazed that this man of war should reveal something so personal. It made him more human, somehow, more vulnerable, whereas up to now he had seemed invincible, immune to the vicissitudes of life. With the divulgence of this memory, he lost his hard edges, softened, and her heart longed to hold him, ached to comfort him. Kneeling on her bed of straw, she reached over, grasped his cold fingers in her small, now warm hand, prepared for rejection. Without speaking, his fingers squeezed hers, accepting her offer of comfort. Her heart soared.
‘I don’t deserve your sympathy, Alice,’ he murmured gruffly. ‘It was my fault he was killed.’
‘Nay!’ She hitched closer to him, took his other hand. ‘Don’t say that! You mustn’t say that! It was not your fault—how could you have known what would happen that day?’
He drank in her vibrant features, her limpid eyes reassuring him, supporting him, and drew strength from those depths. How could one so small, so delicate, be such a source of strength, of energy?
‘It wasn’t your fault, Bastien,’ she said again, her eyes imploring him to believe it. ‘Nobody blames you.’
He sighed, gripping her fingers, hard. ‘Nay, Alice, you’re wrong. My mother blamed me for Guillaume’s death. She has never forgiven me.’
Chapter Nine
The guard at the gatehouse of Abberley Castle planted himself firmly in front of the open portcullis, legs astride. In his right hand he held a lance, at least ten foot long; a narrow white flag fluttered from the top, just below the shining point, heavily embroidered with the colours of the King.
‘What business have you here?’ he asked roughly, jutting his chin up at Bastien.
‘I have brought the Lady Alice home,’ answered Bastien, nodding at the maid beside him. The guard scrutinised the girl riding at the big man’s side.
‘It’s me, Albert,’ Alice laughed as the expression on the guard’s face changed to one of astonishment. ‘It’s really me.’
‘Holy Mother of God, so it is!’ The arrogant mask slipped from the guard’s face as he blinked up at Alice. ‘Where in God’s name have you been?’ He glanced curiously at Bastien. ‘The whole place has been in an uproar looking for you!’
‘Then I had better go in an
d find my mother,’ Alice replied, her heart sinking slightly as she anticipated the tumult of questions.
‘Oh, of course, of course!’ The guard stepped back, nodding and smiling. Alice kicked her heels into the mare’s flanks to set the animal walking once more. In the shadowed darkness of the gatehouse, she paused, knowing that once she passed through the gate, her charade of betrayal would begin.
‘Lead on, my lady.’ Bastien was at her side, his horse sidling so close to her that the toe of his boot brushed along the side of her hip. She flushed, grateful for the damp, cloying dimness of the gatehouse. ‘And remember to play your part—’ his voice held a warning ‘—because I’ll be watching you.’
‘No need to threaten me, Bastien,’ she whispered back, conscious that the guard watched their backs, ‘I value my father’s life too much.’ Last night, she had witnessed a softer side to this man, the briefest, fleeting glimpse of the sadness he had endured at the loss of his brother. Yet ever since that time he had been cold, aloof, behaving like a complete oaf.
‘Then let’s do this,’ he said, impatiently. ‘And remember, don’t call me by my real name, make something up.’ The slightest nudge from his heels sent his horse trotting out into the light of the inner bailey. The irritation that had plagued him all morning seemed exacerbated by the situation; he wanted to do the job quickly and leave, leave this maid who seemed to draw him in, closer and closer, with every moment he spent in her company. He had never spoken of his brother’s death before; he had vowed never to speak of it. Christ, this maid was turning him into some maudlin’ fop, ready to spill the beans about every little crisis! How had she managed to wring the words from him, undermining his normally rigid self-control? Many women had asked before, yet he had never told of the depths of guilt that laced through him. But he had been punished for it. His mother had made sure of it.
Grooms immediately ran to secure their horses, small boys scampering over the cobbles to grab the reins as Alice and Bastien pulled them in. Intending to dismount before Bastien could help her, Alice was dismayed to find him at her side before she had even slipped her foot from the stirrup.
‘Let’s start as we mean to go on.’ He lifted her easily, swinging her down, his big, warm hands steady about her waist. But he didn’t let her go at once, holding her so she was clamped against him, chest to chest, her toes dangling a good foot from the ground.
‘Put me down,’ she squeaked at him, outraged. Between the muscled cords of his neck, she could see his pulse beating strongly.
‘Just remember,’ he growled at her in a low voice, ‘that you are eternally grateful to me for rescuing you from those barbarian Yorkists.’
Alice’s toe made contact with his left shin.
He winced. ‘Be agreeable…or else.’
Was it her imagination, or did she see the trace of a smile on his face? Was he actually enjoying this?
‘I’ll behave,’ she answered quietly. ‘But I can’t say it’s going to be easy.’ At her words he allowed her to slide down so her feet touched the ground, holding her in such a way as to make the movement slow, deliberate. Her eyes met his, accusation in their blue depths. ‘And you can stop that sort of behaviour,’ she snapped. ‘I’m betrothed.’
‘So you said,’ Bastien replied slowly, his eyes flicking over her bright head at the sight of an older woman emerging from a doorway, shrieking at the top of her voice. Spinning in his loose hold, Alice’s heart sank. ‘Prepare yourself to meet my mother,’ she ground out, her teeth set.
‘Alice, Alice, oh, my little Alice!’ In a peculiar loping style, her mother half-walked, half-ran, across the cobbles, her palms upwards, outstretched towards her daughter. She was pursued by a gaggle of brightly dressed women, their satin slippers and fine silk skirts dancing across the inner bailey like bouncing butterflies: these were the ladies of the Queen’s court, all anxious not to miss one moment of this emotional homecoming.
‘Mother,’ Alice greeted her mother tentatively as the older woman approached. She couldn’t remember the last time her mother had been so concerned as to her personal well-being; this over-emotional greeting was completely at odds with her mother’s normal manner towards her.
‘Oh, my God, what has happened to you?’ Beatrice’s eyes were wild, searching, scouring her daughter’s face for some kind of evidence that she had been through a terrible time. ‘Where have you been?’ Her hands fluttered over Alice, touching her face, her shoulders, in an agitated, nervous way.
‘Mother, I’m well. Stop worrying.’ Alice caught one of her mother’s hands, bemused by her mother’s effusive manner. ‘I was captured by the Yorkists—’
‘Captured! Oh, good Lord!’ Beatrice moaned, sagging back into the arms of the other ladies. ‘What happened to you…? What did those barbarians do to you?’
‘Nothing happened…I told you…I’m fine.’
Beatrice drew herself upwards, her face pale, but angry. ‘I knew this would happen. I told you, didn’t I?’ Her blue eyes, identical to Alice’s, snapped over her daughter. ‘By God, I warned you enough times, but would you listen…? Nay, you kept going off with your father…’
Alice knotted her fingers together over her stomach, resigned, allowing her mother’s ranting to wash over her. This was more familiar; Beatrice’s worried concern had lasted mere moments, only to be replaced by torrents of criticism. ‘Mother, I am safe…’ Alice managed to interject when Beatrice was forced to pause for breath. ‘Lord…er…Lord Dunstan…’ she frantically conjured up a name for the man at her side.
‘And what did they do to you, eh?’ her mother interrupted. ‘Now, I’ll have no hope of finding you a husband, damaged goods like you!’
Alice flushed painfully at her mother’s crude remarks; usually Beatrice reserved the worst of her criticism for behind closed doors. Her mother seemed to have lost all sense of perspective, letting her true colours show in public. At her side, Bastien shifted imperceptibly—was it her imagination, or did he move closer to her? The bulk of his upper arm curved around the top of her shoulder; the warmth of him nurturing her in a surprising, unexpected way.
‘Mother, please stop this. Nothing bad happened. Listen to me.’ At her daughter’s low, imploring tones, Beatrice’s mouth clamped shut, abruptly. ‘Lord Dunstan rescued me, brought me home,’ Alice continued calmly, relieved that she had managed to stop her mother ranting on. The last thing she wanted was for Bastien to become embroiled in the grubby minutiae of family business.
‘Yes, yes, of course. I was forgetting. Forgive me, my lord.’ Beatrice raised her head jerkily towards Bastien, at last acknowledging his presence. ‘I was so overcome to see Alice again…’
‘No matter, my lady.’ Bastien brushed her apology aside. ‘Although you must rest assured that no harm came to your daughter.’ Even as the words emerged from his lips, the image of himself, sprawled across Alice after she had stolen his horse, pushed vividly into his mind.
‘It seems we are in your debt, my Lord Dunstan. I trust that you will take advantage of any hospitality we can offer you.’ Having recovered her public persona, the formal words slid from Beatrice with ease; she had spent a lifetime dealing with guests and visitors, perfecting the art of receiving them to such an extent that little thought now entered the process.
‘I thank you, my lady,’ Bastien responded with a brisk nod of his head. How different the mother was from her daughter! Beatrice was all sharp angles, her fine court clothes hanging from her thin, bony frame, her eyebrows completely plucked away and redrawn, in his opinion, at a ludicrously high angle with soft charcoal. With her hair completely hidden by an elaborate padded head-dress, he couldn’t even tell if it was the same colour as Alice’s. Whereas warmth and light seemed to pour from Alice, this woman appeared cold, icy, despite her demonstrative behaviour.
Beatrice peered past Alice. ‘And where is that hapless father of yours? Tending to the injured outside the castle gates as usual? Too busy even to greet his own wife? He could have br
ought you back on his own, surely, without having to trouble this good man here.’
‘We were both captured by the Yorkists, Mother,’ Alice explained gently. ‘Only I was fortunate enough to escape.’
Beatrice’s lips pursed together; two points of colour appeared high on her cheeks. ‘Both of you…completely irresponsible. First Thomas, and now this.’ She shook her head, a sharp movement that made every pearl in her head-dress shudder and jolt, before turning on her heel and marching inside, her back as straight as a poker inside the stiff folds of her court dress.
Alice stared after her mother for a moment, yearning, for a split second, for a different reaction from her. Then she shook her head as if to rid herself of that dreamlike thought, pulled her spine straight and angled her head up to Bastien, chin high and proud. ‘I’ll find someone to show you to your chamber.’
Bastien saw the hurt chase across Alice’s gentle face, saw it quickly suppressed, hidden, unformed. The urge to comfort her, to wrap her in his arms and kiss away the forlorn look on her face, surged powerfully through him, an insistent desire. He clenched his fists by his sides, compelling himself to look away from her limpid features. Even though he was accustomed to the soldier’s rough way of life, Alice’s mother had been cruel, critical. Surprisingly, he understood.
Alice lowered her cold, naked body into the wooden tub of hot water, a small sound of delight emitting from her throat at the delicious sensation. The rising steam was fragrant, scented by the dried lavender sewn into the muslin bags that floated in the water. Leaning back, she rested the nape of her neck against the edge of the tub. She pressed the warm pads of her fingers against the shadowed wells of exhaustion beneath her eyes, and began to relax, relishing the sweetness of the water brushing against her tired limbs.
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