Chapter 1 #2
Iron spurs decorated the heels of his leather boots, and dark breeches molded his strong legs, the cloth firmed by leather cross garters.
One big hand rested on the hilt of his sword in its scabbard, and Lily noted a scabbed cut across his knuckles.
His tunic of chain mail, or hauberk, was dull and stained from the day’s fighting, and there was a rent at his broad shoulder.
Beneath his conical helmet Lily was able to make out his clean-shaven chin and his mouth, full-lipped despite being so rigidly held.
To her consternation, her interest remained fixed on that mouth, only slowly lifting to his eyes, which glowed darkly either side of the metal nasal.
They stared deep into hers, and there was a quick intelligence in them that once again surprised her.
Perhaps something of her thoughts showed on her face, for the gleam was abruptly doused, the dark eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Radulf demanded, “Who are you? What are you?”
Lily glanced down at her hands to give herself time to concoct a believable story. Her fingers were clasped tightly at her waist, and on her thumb something gleamed gold in the torchlight. A ring.
Her father’s gold ring! Given to him by Lily’s mother, and which Vorgen had taken from his dead finger, and which in turn had been taken from Vorgen’s finger when he was killed. Lily had worn it ever since, for it rightly belonged to her. It was a ring like no other, a symbol of leadership.
Her father’s device, a hawk, was chased on a black niello background, the hawk’s eye set with a bloodred ruby. Around the hawk design an inscription was engraved, the words also filled with black enamel or niello: “I give thee my heart.”
Appreciating the value of symbols, Vorgen had taken the hawk as his own when he killed Lily’s father, and it had flown on flags and banners over every battlefield on which he had fought.
Radulf would recognize it.
Lily lifted her gaze and fixed it on Radulf, not knowing what she would say, only that her life depended on it. Beneath the cover of her cloak her fingers were busy tugging at the one thing that might give her secret away. Her voice tumbled out, breathless.
“My lord, I have been staying with my cousins over the border, in Scotland, during this trouble in Northumbria. When we heard Vorgen was dead, I was sent home with a group of men-at-arms. My father, Edwin of Rennoc, is a vassal of the Earl of Morcar, and lives ten leagues south of Grimswade. We had reached the forest just north of here when we were attacked by outlaws. I managed to escape on my horse. I don’t know what happened to the men. ”
The English Earl of Morcar had been King William’s man and had refused to join Vorgen in the rebellion. So any vassal of Morcar’s would also be William’s man, and Lily knew Edwin of Rennoc had a young, fair-haired daughter.
“I was weary and afraid and took shelter in this church. I hoped to find sanctuary. There is so much warring in the north, I did not know who was friend and who was foe.”
“ ’Tis true ’tis sometimes hard to tell one from the other,” Radulf agreed softly. More humor? Lily had no time to ponder Radulf’s strange manner, for his voice curtly demanded, “Do you know who I am, lady?”
She nodded. Beneath her cloak, the ring popped off her thumb, and she nearly dropped it.
“Then you know I am the king’s man. If you are indeed who you say you are, you are safe with me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Could he believe her so easily? Lily gripped the ring tightly in her slippery palm as Radulf leaned over her, his dark eyes holding a twin image of the boy’s fiery torch. Steadying her fingers, Lily slipped the hawk ring neatly through the tear in the lining of her cloak.
None too soon. Radulf was holding out his hand, palm up, and with the sensation of placing her head in a wolf’s jaws, Lily gave him her shaking fingers.
His skin was very warm, and callused where he gripped his sword.
As he raised her to her feet, his gaze ran over her face, taking note of her features as if he were making an inventory, she thought in frightened anger.
Lily was well aware of what he would see; her face was no mystery to her.
Widely set gray eyes framed by thick, dark lashes and above them arching dark brows.
An oval face with high cheekbones, a straight nose perhaps a little long for true beauty, and a stubborn chin.
Skin like pearl, growing flushed now from his intense perusal.
Once a bard had come to her father’s manor and sung songs in praise of her beauty and of how he wished to melt her heart.
Hers was a cold beauty, and strangers assumed her heart was equally cold.
Lily only wished it were so. In truth her heart was soft and tender, and she had had to guard it all the more diligently to prevent it shattering. The defense came naturally now; she had lost the ability to be open.
Carefully, as if he were afraid of startling her, Radulf reached to slip the hood of her wool cloak from her hair.
The pale silk, neatly plaited when she had left Rona’s, was now a wild mass of escaping curls.
The sudden flash of heat in Radulf’s dark eyes told Lily more than any words what he was feeling.
“The moon has come down from the sky to light our way,” he murmured. “What say you to that, Stephen?”
The boy laughed nervously.
Radulf lifted a strand of her hair and allowed it to slide through his brown, battle-scarred fingers.
Lily’s breath caught in her throat, and warmth crept into her cheeks. The sight of her hair against his skin was disturbing in a way she didn’t understand. This was Radulf, she reminded herself, the man who would hunt her down and destroy her.
Slowly, Radulf’s hand cupped her face, his roughened fingers sliding over her skin as though he sought to imprint it in his memory.
A tingle ran through her from the point of his contact, down her throat, spreading across her breasts and arrowing into her belly.
He made a wordless sound, but she did not look at him, too caught up in her own sensations.
It was as if she were a pale candle and he were the brand that had set her alight.
And now she was burning. Slowly, languorously burning.
“You have not told me your name,” he reminded her, his deep voice gentle, and tilted her head back so that she was looking far into his eyes.
He wanted to kiss her—Lily read it in those dark depths.
And she wanted him to. Light-headed, Lily found her gaze shifting again to that sensuous mouth.
Watched it curve up ever so slightly at the corners.
“Your name?” he whispered.
“My name is Lily.” Instantly, she cursed her wandering wits. Then she remembered that to the Normans, Vorgen’s wife was known as Wilfreda.
It was only her father who had called her Lily—
My cool, beautiful lily.
“Lily,” he repeated, warming the name on his tongue. “Aye, it suits your cool beauty.”
His thumb smoothed the jut of her chin and, as Lily’s breath sighed softly between her parted lips, boldly brushed her full lower lip.
She trembled, sliding deeper into a situation of which she had little experience.
Suddenly his mouth was so close that Lily could feel his warm breath, smell the male scent of him.
She knew then that this was not fantasy, this was not a dream. He really did mean to kiss her, right there, in Grimswade church. And if he kissed her, Lily feared she would melt into a puddle at his feet, would be his to command. An even more dangerous situation than the one she was now in.
Lily jumped away, like a startled mare.
The boy grunted a curse as her elbow connected with his midriff, and then muttered an apology to his lord. Lily felt her cheeks warming again as betraying color flooded her pale skin. Never in her life had she behaved in such a wanton manner!
And never in your life have you wanted to.
Radulf had stepped back. He was smiling, but all humor had vanished from his face.
It was as if Lily’s fear of his kiss had broken whatever strange, hot spell they had been under, reminding him of who and what he was.
This time when Radulf leaned toward her, his voice was soft with menace rather than desire.
“Yes, I am to be feared, lady. You do well to remember it. You tell me you are loyal to King William, but why should I believe you? For all I know, your loyalty may lie with Vorgen or his she-devil of a wife.”
Lily shook her head firmly, trying to still the savage beating of her heart. She-devil! He dared call her so, when all she had ever cared for was the welfare of her people! And yet how could Radulf or King William know her truly, when Vorgen had ruled her lands and made war in her name?
“My lord,” she said, “truthfully, I am no ‘she-devil.’”
But the eyes that had gazed into hers so warmly were cold and unfeeling; the mouth that had promised her such pleasure had become a thin, hard line.
The change in him was frightening, and yet it was also a relief.
This was how she had always imagined Radulf, not that other man with his melting dark eyes and delectable mouth. She could hate this man.
Radulf had turned away from her, speaking to the boy, Stephen, as if Lily no longer existed. “Take the lady to my tent and guard her there. When I return from Vorgen’s keep I will question her again.”
Lily gasped at his high-handedness. She had expected to face some suspicion as to the truth of her identity, but she had still hoped Radulf would give her the benefit of the doubt and send her on her way.
She should have realized a man like Radulf would be overcautious.
How else had one as hated as he lived so long?
He was watching her again, absently rubbing his shoulder where the chain mail had been cut.
Lily saw that blood the color of rust had seeped through his under tunic.
Her heart gave a hard, solitary thump.
“You are wounded, my lord Radulf.”
The words came out of her mouth involuntarily. As Vorgen’s wife, Lily had learned to scheme and dissemble, to be what she was not—it had been necessary to enable her to survive. But this time the notion that displaying womanly sympathy might be wise only occurred to her after she had spoken.
“ ’Tis nothing.” Gruffly, Radulf shrugged off her concern.
“ ’Tis not ‘nothing’ if you are hurt, my lord.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. Lily felt his suspicion like a stone wall between them. “What would you do about it then, Lady Lily?”
Lily swallowed. His gaze was so intense, as if he were watching her for some sign . . . but of what? “I . . . I would tend you, my lord.”
“Ah, ‘tend me,’ ” he murmured. His body relaxed. His mouth twitched. “Do you think that wise, lady?”
Lily’s brow wrinkled in a frown. “My lord?”
Radulf stepped closer, and Lily’s body went rigid as she fought a sudden, mad desire to sway into his arms. “I may ask you to tend more than my shoulder,” he murmured, his breath stirring tendrils of her hair.
Instinctively Lily’s eyes lifted to his, reading the truth there. Radulf desired her . . . as had Vorgen.
Fear trickled in icy drops down her spine, but this was not fear of Radulf her enemy. This was a fear Vorgen had planted in her, a dark skein of dread, and within that dread were woven myriad strands of doubt and shame.
“Lady?”
He spoke sharply and Lily blinked. The present refocused. She was in Grimswade church with Radulf, and, strangely, relief was now her upper-most emotion. Lily tightened her cloak about her, attempting to regain her composure.
Radulf sighed; he seemed disappointed. Lily realized too late that again he had read her fear and thought it was of him. “Take her to the camp,” he commanded Stephen. “Now!” And turning abruptly, he strode on long legs outside into the darkness.
Stephen took her arm in a strong grip. “Come, my lady,” he said cheerily, in his boy-man voice.
“Lord Radulf has spoken.”
Outside, dawn’s cold light was gathering on the eastern horizon. The air was sharp, filled with the smells of burning torches and sweating horses, but most of the hurrying soldiers had now moved northward across the cornfields, toward Vorgen’s stronghold.
Toward Lily’s home, two leagues away.
Her eyes glittered with tears. They would find nothing there but a burned, black shell. After Lily had fled, her people had burned what remained, so that never again could the Normans use the buildings to shelter their soldiers.
Stephen gripped her arm tighter and tugged her along. Lily shook him off, losing some of her assumed meekness. Whatever spell Radulf’s presence had spun, it was dispersing with his going.
“I have a mare hidden in the trees over there,” she said, pointing at the small thicket. “If I leave her, she will be stolen.”
Stephen eyed her cautiously, but must have thought she spoke good sense, because he sent off another boy to fetch the mare.
“Why does Radulf go to Vorgen’s keep?” Lily asked, more of herself than the boy.
Stephen hesitated, but youth and excitement loosened his tongue. “He thinks Vorgen’s wife hides there. He plans to capture her and take her to the king.”
And what then? Instinctively, Lily assumed an expression of icy disdain, concealing her thoughts and emotions. Such precautions were second nature to her now, as necessary as breathing in keeping her alive.
A soldier hovered nearby, and Lily realized she was to have a guard. So Radulf feared “Edwin of Rennoc’s daughter” might escape? Perhaps she would have tried it, were she not so tired. But even if she did escape, where would she go?
Strange as it seemed, Radulf’s tent was probably the safest place to hide just now. No one would be looking for the she-devil there.
“I am weary.” She spoke at last. “It has been a long and perilous night. Is your lord’s tent far . . . Stephen, is it?”
Stephen gave her a shy smile. “Aye, I am called Stephen. I am Lord Radulf’s squire. And it is not far. Our army is camped just beyond the village of Grimswade.”
Lily nodded and made certain to pull her hood back over her hair, tying it close so that her face was half hidden. If she remained in the Norman camp she would not be recognized by anyone in Grimswade village, but she could not take any chances.
Her life depended upon it.