Chapter 8 #2
Lily shuddered, and disguised it by drawing her cloak more tightly about her body as if she were cold.
Once she had thought she loved Hew, that she desired nothing more than to be his wife and lie in his arms. Now she knew how shallow and foolish her youthful feelings had been.
She had never loved Hew. Her time with Radulf had given her a taste of what real love must be; a fiery dragon that set your blood ablaze.
What she had felt for Hew was pitiable in comparison.
Lily glanced up and found Hew watching her, his blue eyes smiling but strangely cool, as if the good humor were but a facade behind which his devious mind was plotting. She forced herself to smile back, to pretend all was well.
“How did you find me?”
“The priest, Father Luc, sent word to me. He was always fond of you, Lily. We have been following you since Grimswade, hoping for an opportunity to free you, but Radulf kept you too close. How came you to fall into his hands?”
Lily patted the mare’s soft nose to gain time.
The truth seemed safe enough. “I was hiding in the church and he found me.”
Behind her, Hew was silent. Lily stroked the mare, pretending to be unaware. All the lessons learned from being Vorgen’s wife were returning.
The knowledge stirred a bitterness inside her.
Tonight, when she sat at the abbot’s table, she had felt as if she was at last beginning to throw off the restrictions being Vorgen’s wife had placed upon her. At last she had felt able to say what she really felt instead of what Vorgen wanted her to say.
Now, because of Hew, she must assume her hate-ful disguise again. Become once more the cold, Norman wife who measured her words as carefully as the spices she kept locked up in a box.
“What were you doing in Grimswade church, Lily?”
She glanced at him, and this time did not try to hide her surprise. “My father and mother are buried there, Hew. I went to say goodbye.”
He had forgotten. She saw the flash of remembrance in his eyes, though he nodded as if he had known it all along.
“So,” Lily found her saddle, “it was your men who were watching the camp?”
“Aye. They were careless and the Norman bastards killed half of them. The rest of us got away, but they were lives I can ill-spare until Malcolm sends me more.” He cocked an eyebrow.
“But I saw enough to know you were not the usual sort of prisoner. Are you consorting with the enemy, Lily? Or are you more devious than I thought?”
Lily lifted her chin, color flooding her face.
“Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think, Hew.”
Hew laughed without humor. “Oh, I think I do.
I think I know you very well indeed. You would not give that lovely body to a Norman unless you could gain something from it. You are cold and calculating, just as Vorgen said. You bewitched him, and now you’ve bewitched Radulf.”
Lily wondered at his stupidity. Vorgen had known her not at all, and if he had been bewitched it was through no fault of hers.
And yet Hew believed him, and did not see the suffering behind Lily’s eyes.
Radulf, too, had believed Vorgen. A mixture of frustration and anger filled Lily, but she thrust the volatile emotions down.
Now was not a good time to allow her heart to rule her head.
“I was watching you the morning you left the camp at Grimswade,” Hew went on.
“I saw Radulf’s tender demeanor. You have played a fine joke on him, Lily.
He will have to explain himself to William the Bastard, explain why he has been riding about the countryside with the very woman he was sent to capture.
I think you have made certain his star will very soon be setting! ”
Lily managed to shrug as if she didn’t care one way or the other, as if she were really as cold and calculating as he seemed to believe. Hew’s eyes gleamed with respect, and she wondered at a man who would admire a woman who lied and cheated and used others to further her own ambition.
He was far worse than she had ever imagined.
“Will you help me saddle the mare?” she asked coolly, neither her voice nor her manner betraying her sick heart.
Hew smiled and complied. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I would have come to fetch you,” he said, hands busy with straps and buckles. “What’s left of my men are waiting beyond the crest of the hill. I did not trust them, not after Grimswade. They are fools. Not like us, Lily.”
They led the mare toward the door, Lily whispering soothing words as the animal whickered nervously.
Outside, the darkness was as still as ever and the monastery slept on.
Hew threw Lily up into the saddle and took the reins, walking the mare toward the gatehouse, a black and bulky silhouette against the cold, starry sky.
“I persuaded one of the lay brothers to open the gate for me,” he murmured, unable to help boast-ing of his own cleverness. “I told him I was your husband and Radulf had stolen you from me. He believed me. He would have believed far worse of a man with Radulf’s reputation.”
“And you always were a good liar.”
Hew laughed softly, taking her words as a compliment. “Well, maybe it isn’t really a lie. I mean to marry you, Lily. Together we would be an unbeatable force. Better than you and Vorgen—he knew nothing of our people.”
“I remember my father telling you that, just before you betrayed him.”
Hew looked up at her, his face silvered by the starlight. She could tell he did not like what she had said; he did not like to be reminded of his perfidy. It had been foolish to let him know she remembered.
Quite suddenly, Lily was afraid of him.
She had never thought to be afraid before.
He had always been Hew, whom she had once loved and now hated, but still Hew, whom she had known all her life.
Now, in a flash, she saw that Hew was also a dangerous man, and no friend to her.
At present he needed her because of Malcolm’s decree that she head their army, but once Hew had his men . . .
The gatehouse rose directly before them. Hew led his own mount from where it had been hidden in the shadows by the wall, and climbed quickly into the saddle. He retained his hold on Lily’s reins, sending her an enigmatic look. He did not trust her, either.
Maybe, she thought bitterly, when you had betrayed as many people as Hew had, it was difficult to trust anybody.
“We will ride to the coast,” he told her calmly, as they passed into the deeper shadows beneath the gatehouse. “Find a boat. We can sail north to Malcolm. ’Tis safer and quicker than going over-land.”
“As you say.” Lily was empty. She felt as if she were leaving her future behind. With Radulf.
Why had she not trusted him when she had the
chance? If she had, she would not now be in this dangerous situation. Though he was her enemy, Lily had never felt as if her life was at risk when she was with Radulf.
Hew was a different matter.
As if he had read the name in her mind, Hew muttered, “I wish I had more men. I would have killed Radulf, taken him in the throat with your dagger, while he slept.” He turned and grinned at her, sharing his evil joke.
“Or I would have woken him first, and let him see your face so that he could understand the trick we had played upon him, before he died.”
Lily closed her eyes. She saw Radulf, too, but not as Hew described him. He stood before her, dark eyes warm and shining, sensuous lips smiling. She took a shaking breath.
All at once there was a clink of metal; the soft scrape of a sword being drawn from its scabbard.
Hew moved sharply, pulling his horse around to face the danger.
And the night split apart.
Men came running at them from all sides, voices roaring. Moonlight glinted on armor and sharp edges.
Hew yelled, “Lily! Run!” and slapped the flank of her mare. But instead of bolting, the mare screamed in fear and outrage, and rose up on her hind legs. Lily had no time to cling on. She was thrown into the chaos about her, and hit the ground hard.
The impact took her breath away. She lay in a tangled heap of wool and linen, her cheek sunk in mud. Somewhere to her right Hew whipped his terrified horse back, through the gateway, toward the monastery buildings. A furious gaggle of Norman soldiers pursued him into the darkness.
Two big, hard hands fastened about Lily’s waist, hauling her to her feet. She swayed, and was steadied.
Slowly, feeling as if this were a bad dream, Lily raised her head to confront her captor.
He was well suited to bad dreams. He towered over her, his big body made bigger by his hauberk, his massive chest rising and falling with each harsh breath. She couldn’t see his face properly because of the helmet, only the glint of his eyes.
She was profoundly glad for that.
“He was right,” growled a deep, familiar voice.
“You should have run.”
Lily said nothing. Her body was bruised and winded, her head ached, and the cold fear of her capture had numbed her until even her breath was no longer warm enough to cloud the night air.
“My scouts noticed that the rebels had been following us since Grimswade,” said Radulf. “I wondered why.”
“And now you know.”
“Now I know.”
“My lord!” One of Radulf’s men had returned, his shoulders bowed with defeat. “We lost him.”
Radulf’s eyes remained fixed on Lily. “Keep looking.” He stepped forward and gripped her arms, pulling her hard against him. Lily was instantly aware of his body heat and his great strength. They were no longer comforting.
“You are no Norman lady.” His voice was low and menacing.
“You were never traveling home from the border to Rennoc. I sent Jervois ahead to speak with Edwin and he returned yesterday. Edwin’s daughter Alice is safe at Rennoc.
I knew about your lies, lady, before we set out for Trier.
I asked you for the truth and you would not give it—”
“I could not,” Lily whispered, pushing her hands against the chain mail. “Do not punish Alice for any of this. She knows nothing of it.”
“Who are you?” Radulf demanded, and his fingers gripped her own so angrily that the hawk ring cut into her flesh. Lily cried out.
He stilled. She had worn no rings before.
“What is this?”
Radulf lifted her hand, catching the glint of the gold.
He shouted for light. Another of his men ran with a torch and, at Radulf’s instruction, held it above their joined hands.
The stinging smoke made Lily’s eyes water but she did not try to pull away.
She was almost glad. No more lies, no more pretense.
There was an inevitability about this moment.
Radulf bent close, and the red eye of the hawk winked up at him. He went very still.
“Lady Wilfreda isn’t in hiding, is she?” he said, trembling with his fury. “She’s here. With me.”
“Yes.”
He looked up then, and she was sure he would strike her. His voice ate into her with its bitterness.
“What did you plan to do, lady? Murder me? Was that why you carried a dagger, to plunge it into my heart? It must have amused you to have Radulf in your snare.”
Lily shook her head. Whatever he thought of her, she could disabuse him of that. “No, Radulf, I never meant to trick you. You cannot believe—”
He leaned closer, his breath hot on her face. His eyes glittered like onyx. His voice shook as he spoke, betraying the enormous self-restraint he was exercising upon himself. “I may have been a fool, lady, but you made me a fine whore!”
Lily flinched, and swayed. Could he not see the truth in her eyes? It seemed he could not . . . would not see. “I am no whore,” she answered dully.
“You of all men know that.”
He dropped her hand as if it burned him. “No, you’re right. Whoring would be too honest a profession for one with your treacherous soul.”
Anger bit into her. Pain and fear and hurt all meshed together in a great, hard ball in her stomach, where the fire of fury consumed them. Why had she ever thought him kind? How could she have imagined there was anything soft between them? This was Radulf, her enemy. He hated her!
And she hated him.
Blinded by her anger, Lily fumbled at her girdle, finding her dagger. She would kill him, stab him through the heart—if he had one! She drew the dagger and struck at him, but Radulf grabbed for it and the blade sliced into his thumb rather than glancing off his mailed chest.
Warm blood dripped onto her gown and Radulf laughed in his fury. “Aye, here is the real Lily!” he declared, his eyes blazing.
Lily went even whiter, instantly releasing the weapon into his keeping. She felt sick and dizzy, as shocked by her action as by its result. Radulf slipped the dagger into his own belt, ignoring the shallow cut to his thumb, his eyes never leaving hers.
“No, my lady liar,” he mocked. “I am not ready to die yet. First, you will have your reckoning. Just as I promised.”
She opened her mouth, but there were no words left in her.
Radulf had already turned away. “Secure her!” he roared. “In the morning we ride to York—to King William!”