by Tamara Leigh
“As I am but one knight,” Sir Norris said when the door closed, “you are to remain here throughout the crossing which, if God be with us, may see us delivered to England by nightfall. In my absence, unbolt the door only when I command it.”
She inclined her head.
“As for him”—he looked to Sir Durand whose chin was on his chest where he sat against the post—“’tis an ill thing he accompanies us.”
She gasped. “You do not say he should have been thrown into the sea—murdered?”
“I would not wish that on him, but neither would I have him tight on our heels as we make for Wiltford.” He sighed. “I do not trust the captain and his men to return him to the queen. Thus, we will have to bring him ashore and enlist the aid of one who can ensure he remains bound until your father determines it is safe to release him.”
Would it ever be safe? Would the man who had risked his life rather than disappoint the queen forget what he had suffered at the hands of The Vestal Widow? And what of Eleanor’s wrath?
Pulling back from worry, which life with Conrad had mostly shielded her from, she said, “I require hot water, bandages, strong drink, and needle and thread to tend Sir Durand’s leg.”
“My lady, until we are under sail—”
“Do you not gain them, I shall.”
He scowled, pivoted, and over his shoulder tossed, “I will return as soon as possible. Bolt the door.”
She did as told, then lowered to her knees at Sir Durand’s feet. Though the light of a hanging lantern barely parted the shadows around his downturned face, it seemed he remained senseless. But that was good. It was unseemly what she must do.
“So we begin,” she whispered and unfastened her mantle, let it fall from her shoulders, and turned her attention to his injured leg. Blood not only stained his chausses but the hem of his tunic above and his boot below. She gripped the latter and tugged.
He groaned.
Eager to finish her ministrations before he awakened, she put more strength into the effort, causing the boot to release so suddenly she nearly toppled.
She dropped the boot beside her. Drawing a deep breath to calm her speeding heart, she turned back his tunic and chain mail and settled their weight atop his upper thighs.
Next, his chausses. But as she eased the material up his hosed calf and thigh, she saw him raise his head.
Feigning ignorance of his regard, she loosened the ties securing his hose to his braies. Though she avoided touching the short expanse of thigh between the two garments, twice her fingers grazed him as the knots resisted her efforts, but throughout he said naught—at least by way of words.
How I am hated, she bemoaned. But then, one ill after another I have dealt him.
Remembering the two knights Sir Norris had set upon the queen’s man, she sent up a prayer they had been pulled from the water. Of course, their fate might be no better were they brought before the king and queen.
Beata released the last of Sir Durand’s ties, took hold of the top of his hose, and slowly rolled it down lest his injury began to form a scab amid the woven cloth. It did not, and when she revealed the gash, she was so relieved it was not bone deep she looked up.
Sir Durand’s eyes awaited hers. “You,” he said with so little movement of the mouth it seemed imagined. “Are.” No movement at all. “A curse.”
She whom Conrad had oft named a blessing. “I vow, I seek only to honor my father’s request as a daughter ought to.”
“What of honoring one’s sovereign?”
Though humor was not appropriate, the Beata who had long enjoyed the indulgences allowed The Vestal Wife quipped, “I did not know that was amongst God’s commandments.”
A growl tore from him, at the end of which he barked, “If you are truly vestal, Lady, ’tis because you vex! Now where are my sword and dagger?”
Beata felt as if sliced by those absent blades. He was not the first to suggest her virtue remained intact because of behavior and opinions deemed unseemly for a lady, but it hurt more for him to speak it.
She raised her chin. “The captain has claimed them, along with your belt and purse.”
He cursed and bucked against the post, doubtless testing the rope binding his hands behind him. Though a kick could have relieved her of a few teeth, he did not take advantage of her vulnerability.
“Sir Durand, Sir Norris has gone for the items required to ensure you do not suffer to your end days the injury done you by Count Verielle’s men. Hate me if you must, but allow me to tend you so I am not responsible for further ill.”
So heavily he dropped his head back against the post it had to pain him, but his only response was a strident breath.
“I saw my father’s knights go into the water,” she ventured. “Do they live?”
Just when she thought he would not answer, he said, “Unless necessary, I do not kill men who labor under the orders of others. For that, I sent them into the water. But what the king will do with them…”
She set her teeth and returned her gaze to his leg. “Your injury is not as bad as feared, but you have let much blood.” When he did not respond, she continued rolling down his hose and, discomfited by the feel of hair roughening the skin of his calf, bit the inside of her cheek.
Durand considered the slope of the lady’s forehead, the rise of her nose, the cracked bow of her upper lip gained between his loss of consciousness and awakening. Refusing to pity her that last, he wondered when he had known anger such as this.
When the woman he had not loved became a pawn to the king Durand now served? Certes, he had been moved enough to further betray the Wulfriths, forcing him to turn outlaw. But he had been angrier.
When the woman he could have loved was nearly hunted to ground to be tried as a witch? He had been angrier.
When he had killed the man who sought to murder the woman he had loved? Aye, that was his angriest. Now, bested by miscreants and having borne the humiliation of lost consciousness, he once more approached that threshold.
“You will answer for this, Lady.”
She sat back on her heels. “That I do not doubt, and though I would release you that I not be the cause of further harm, all I can do is better your chance of healing.”
Anger aside, that was everything to a man of the sword. “Then better it!”
Minutes later, she admitted Sir Norris to the cabin. He handed her a sack, then positioned himself to one side of Durand and braced his legs apart to counter the inhospitable waters—hopefully, not so inhospitable Baron Wulfrith’s ship could not give chase.
The lady threaded a needle, then put a wine skin to Durand’s lips and encouraged him to drink it all to dull the pain of the stitches to come. He accepted half and took his time, not only to allow the wine to do its work but to savor her discomfort.
Next came the burn of strong alcohol and further ache when she pressed the edges of his flesh together for the stitching. The only thing for which he was grateful was her confidence.
“I can sew it, my lady,” Sir Norris said as she retrieved the needle.
She considered his offer, then said, “Since it cannot differ greatly from joining cloth, albeit messier, methinks the queen’s man would prefer the finer stitches of which I am capable.”
Durand wanted to demand she pass the needle to Sir Norris, but her belief she was better qualified to more securely—hopefully, more quickly—seam the wound, was not without merit. Still, it surprised that The Vestal Widow was skilled in needlework.
She looked to Durand. “It will hurt.”
He thrust his eyebrows high.
“It seemed the thing to say,” she muttered.
“Be done with it!”
Ire flashed in her green eyes, but she said, “Bring the lantern near, Sir Norris.”
When light fell full on Durand’s leg, the lady much too slowly and intently taught herself how to sew a man’s flesh.
Again, he held close his pain, allowing only grunts to escape. Once the miser
y was done, he breathed deep while she bandaged the wound.
“There.” She sat back. “Methinks it will heal well.”
Were she not responsible, he would be grateful. But he was grudgingly impressed by her willingness to stitch him. All other women known to him, except Helene the healer, would have balked.
Moments later, orders sounded overhead, cloth snapped, and iron fittings rang, further evidence the captain had committed his ship and crew to a crossing the boat’s increasingly erratic movement told was better left for another day.
“God be with us,” the lady gasped when the hull creaked loudly and listed hard to one side.
There being little chance it would be other than a rough passage, Durand revised his hope that the baron’s ship put to sea. Regardless of the aid Wulfrith would provide, he would not have the warrior’s wife and children lose a beloved husband and father, especially for such a woman as this.
If ever he required further proof women were more trouble than they were worth, here she was—The Vexing Widow who had dragged him into a mess not easily pieced by the edge of a sword.
“Please, Lord,” she entreated.
“Pray harder,” he bit, then looked to Sir Norris. “If you truly wish to deliver the lady to your liege, you will instruct the captain to turn back before this weather sees us all dead.”
The man shook his head. “We shall have to trust God to deliver us.”
“Is that who you believe commands this ship? ’Tis not. It is a foul being who would commit unspeakable acts against your lady if not for the promise of coin.”
The lady rose and snatched at the swinging bed to keep her balance. “Sir Norris, though I know you would do your duty to my father, methinks Sir Durand is right. We should turn back.”
“My lady, if you fall into the king’s hands again, you will be given no room to…” He glanced at Durand. “…do your duty to your father.”
“But if our lives are in danger—”
“More in danger they will be if the reward you doubled is denied the captain.”
Durand jerked. This woman had persuaded the captain to ignore warnings against exploring the deadly curves and hollows of the sea?
“And for what?” Sir Norris continued. “That he and his crew find themselves at the mercy of King Henry rather than the sea? Nay, this is our course.” He returned the lamp to its hook, said, “Secure the door,” and departed.
Avoiding Durand’s gaze, she assured her footing across the floor and struggled to fit the bolt.
“Is it worth your life, Lady?”
She peered across her shoulder. “You misinterpret what Sir Norris told. I did double the reward, but not to ensure we set sail. I did it to keep a senseless man weighted by chain mail from being dropped into the sea when my hold on him failed.” She touched her cut lip.
One of the crew had struck her? Before the wrath Durand did not want to feel for that offense could displace his anger toward her, she hastily added, “It was not intentional. It was a lesson learned that a woman stands little chance in physically opposing men—that her efforts are best spent on bargaining. But you have only my word for the reason I doubled the reward, and I doubt it holds much value.”
He did not want to believe her, but he was here with her rather than beneath the sea.
She turned away, resumed her struggle with the bolt, and forced it into its hole.
“It will not long keep out whatever wants in,” he said.
She stumbled back against the door and slapped palms to it.
“Be it the sea,” he continued, “or seamen too lusty to remember there is coin to be had in ensuring The Vestal Widow remains vestal, that lock can be rendered useless.”
“You seek to frighten me!” Her words were nearly lost beneath a shout from the deck that called for the raising of the foresail.
“With good cause,” he said, “and having succeeded, you shall release me.”
She shook her head, and more of her hair abandoned its braid.
Patience, he counseled himself. “Ere this crossing is done, you will need me unbound, whether to keep you from ravishment, a watery grave, or both.”
“I cannot.”
Though tempted to curse, he resisted gaining the Lord’s displeasure when what he and every soul aboard needed were His good graces. But that did not prevent him from using their breath against this woman. “Fool!”
She pushed off the door and crossed the floor that was less aslant than moments earlier. As she came alongside Durand, she gripped the post to which he was bound. “So you name me because I refuse to allow the queen to order a life that does not belong to her.”
“Order? She but wishes your safe return to your father by one she trusts.”
“As she would have me believe. But in your hearing, did she not imply a better future for me was one spent at prayer—a cloistered life?”
“Aye, and in your hearing she said the same of me, as she has many times. Yet ’tis far from a cloistered life I live.”
Though not so far where chastity is concerned, he silently acceded, Lady Gaenor being the last woman I—
He pulled back from the memory that more dishonored him than it had the one whose life was almost ruined for what she had gifted to one unworthy of such.
“Then you were not to deliver me to a convent?” The Vexing Widow said and caught her breath when the sea once more asserted its superiority by knocking her against his shoulder.
“My word I give, Lady. My orders were to escort you to your father upon the barony of Wiltford.”
Gripping the post, she looked so long at him he tired of tipping back his head and lowered his chin. In the silence, he tested the ropes binding his wrists. Only enough slack to allow blood to flow and evidence whoever had tied the knots had shown some consideration.
“Even do you speak true,” the lady finally said, “’tis not all you were ordered to do. The queen would not so concern herself with one she finds as improper as me.”
She was right, but he was not at liberty to divulge Eleanor’s suspicions though the queen had alerted The Vestal Widow to them.
“You were to report upon my father, aye?”
He raised his head. “I was to deliver you to Wiltford. Only one disloyal to his sovereign need be concerned over my report to the queen.” Or any action I might take, he did not say. “Your father and you are not disloyal, are you?”
“Though our family—the same as the Wulfriths—once supported King Stephen’s claim to the throne, that is in the past.”
Because Stephen and his heir were dead. Thus, it was not for fear of losing the crown Eleanor had set Durand upon The Vestal Widow. It was reluctance to part with a privilege that could benefit royal coffers.
“Then since you can have no objection to my accompaniment, unbind me so I may do my duty, ensuring you and yours are more easily forgiven.”
She appeared to consider it, but more shouted orders sent her gaze to the ceiling. “I cannot,” she said again and stepped away.
“Lady!”
She caught hold of the swinging bed and looked around.
Determined to be prepared for escape, he said, “My boot.”
With the ship so loose beneath her, he thought she might refuse, but she retrieved it and sank to her knees.
Durand followed her gaze to the hose bunched around his ankle. Though not opposed to her unease, he knew it would be uncomfortable for him as well. But there was nothing for it. “Unless you release me, Lady, you must set it aright.”
He heard the breath she drew through her nose, then she slid her fingers into the top of his hose and eased it up over his calf. Her touch was as infrequent and light as when she had lowered the hose, but this time he felt an awareness of her and was struck by exactly how many years had passed since soft fingertips had moved over his battle-toughened flesh.
She tugged the hose up over his knee, and again her fingers grazed his thigh as she fastened its ties to those of his braies. Though
he searched her face for something sly and seductive that would allow him to blame her for his body’s response, he found naught. She kept her eyes lowered and lips compressed, and once she finished her task, sat back and shoved his boot over his foot and up his calf.
“There.” She stood and sought the opening in the cradle of material that would make the ship’s movements more bearable.
Were Durand less disturbed and the drink less felt, he might have scorned her fumbling and tumbling into the bed that provided a glimpse of shapely calves.
He closed his eyes, but the memory of her touch and the curve of legs once more moved him as he had long struggled against being moved.
Only lust, he assured himself. No other feeling. Not sympathy, grief, or fondness that could move one toward love to which he had succumbed only once.
“Sir Durand?”
Not caring to look into eyes that required little light to dance with life he did not think he had ever felt as deeply as she did, nor look upon a mouth so expert in forming a smile that her imperfect teeth could make no ruin of it, he lowered his chin to his chest.
“Would that you had not followed me aboard,” she said. “I am sorry. Truly.”
“Not as sorry as you shall be.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
She thought she would die. Almost did not care if she saw another sunrise. Almost wished the ship would go down and sooner end her misery.
During her first voyage across the narrow sea, when the girl she had been was to wed a man of an age he could have been her great grandfather, she had been ill despite fairly calm waters. Now, a dozen or more hours into this crossing, night had dropped its cloak, the shouts above deck were without end, and rain beat and slashed and squeezed through cracks that made it appear the walls of her cabin wept.
“I am in hell,” she breathed.
Thrice Sir Norris had returned, each time bearing simple viands that she had not dared eat and Sir Durand had refused though she offered to feed him.
