Chapter 13 #2
She moved his hand off her rock-hard, tender breast. "Donata was too fretful to feed properly. I should go back and try her again."
He rose and set her on her feet. "Does it hurt to be like that?"
She touched the bulge in the front of his braies. "Does it hurt to be like that?"
He laughed. "Somewhat, yes."
"I suspect it may feel the same, though the relief won't."
With rueful laughter they hurried back across the sheep-scattered field to the manor house, and Jehanne knew Galeran must be thinking of making love as much as she was. But the small manor house offered no privacy, and they weren't of a mind to couple in a crowded room.
Penance and votive offering, she reminded herself. And anyway, at the moment her milk would flood the house.
By the open hall doors, just before they parted, Galeran said, "Jehanne, watch Aline."
"Aline? Why?"
"She's playing some game with Raoul, which means she's playing with a sharp-edged knife."
"Control your friend, then."
"I trust him, within limits. You might want to explain to Aline that throwing out challenges to men can be foolhardy."
Jehanne stared at him. "What on earth do you mean?"
"Just ask her about the river."
Pondering that, Jehanne went to Donata, but found her at last asleep. The poor infant still looked flushed from her crying, and it would be cruel to waken her.
Being in some pain, Jehanne squeezed out enough milk to relieve the pressure. She couldn't help wondering if Galeran might be relieving himself in a similar way.
As she expressed the milk, she pondered Aline's situation. Could she be seriously involved with Raoul? If so, Jehanne had been too distracted with her own affairs to notice.
"Where is Lady Aline?" she asked a servant.
"I don't know, my lady."
Aline was almost as devoted to Donata as Jehanne. What had she found that was more important? It all seemed disturbingly unnatural, and she wondered if in some way they had steered their lives into entirely the wrong paths.
When she was as comfortable as possible, Jehanne went looking for her cousin and found her in the stillroom innocently helping Lady Marjorie, the elderly lady of the manor, in preparing simples. She couldn't help noticing, however, that her cousin frowned as she pounded leaves.
"Why the black look?" Jehanne asked, taking up a bunch of borage and beginning to pinch off the petals. "Are you still worried about the fighting?"
"No," said Aline, twisting the pestle viciously in the mortar.
"Then perhaps you have a headache."
"I never have headaches."
"Anything can change as circumstances change. Perhaps, then, it is your feelings for Raoul de Jouray that bother you?"
Gray-haired Lady Marjorie glanced across with a twinkling smile.
Aline stopped her pounding and glared at Jehanne. "Not at all."
"It is not very Christian to have no feelings for another human being."
Aline settled back to her task. "You know what I mean."
"Yes, I do. And I think I know more than that. I am in some way responsible for you, as is Galeran. It would shame us both to have you act foolishly."
Aline turned her head to look at Jehanne, clearly thinking that Jehanne had little right to guide in matters of acting foolishly.
Though she knew she was coloring, Jehanne ignored the silent reproach. "What were you doing down at the river?"
"I wasn't down at the river." Aline pounded at leaves that were almost slime. Lady Marjorie gently removed them and replaced them with fresh ones.
"You were close enough to see, I have no doubt," said Jehanne. "Aren't you a little old to be peeping at the men from the bushes?"
Aline turned, hands on hips. "Who said that? If it was that—"
"No!" Jehanne threw up a hand. "I'm just guessing. Have pity, Aline, and tell me. What did you do?"
For a moment it seemed her cousin would refuse, but then she said, "I looked out from the palisade, that's all. I was worried about Galeran. I wanted to be sure he was all right."
"But after it was clear he was uninjured, you stayed to watch." Jehanne, too, stopped the pretense of working. "Aline, one man's body is much like another."
"Is Galeran's like any other man's to you?"
Jehanne caught her breath. "Have you fallen in love with Raoul, then?"
"Love? Of course not!" But Aline turned to pick up a willow branch and pick away its bark.
She halted with one long strip in her fingers, twirling it.
"I would be lying to say that I don't find him arousing, though.
" She tossed the bark on a pile and stripped off more.
"I'm determined to conquer such feelings, so I am practicing on him. "
"Practicing...!" Jehanne stared at her cousin. "What kind of practice, pray?"
Aline looked up, bold but red-faced. "He is trying to seduce me, and I am learning how to resist."
"Seduce!" Jehanne tossed down her bunch of sprigs. "You're mad! What if he wins? You'll be ruined."
"Perhaps if I lose I would deserve to be ruined. Just as Galeran would deserve to be dead if Raoul could defeat him."
Jehanne snatched the willow twig out of her cousin's hand. "One slip and Raoul injured him. And could easily have killed him. Aline, this is far too dangerous a game to play when your life is at stake."
Aline faced Jehanne seriously. "It's no game, Jehanne. If I'm to be a nun, I must know I'm strong enough to resist the most potent temptation of the devil."
"Most potent..." echoed Jehanne in sinking dismay. Galeran was right. This was a perilous situation. And yet Aline had a point. What if she weren't suited to a life of chastity?
But Raoul de Jouray? It was like a person who had never ridden deciding to use a war stallion for their first attempt. Jehanne wondered exactly what had been attempted?
"So," she asked, "what happened down by the river as part of this battle of yours?"
Aline's eyes suddenly twinkled with wicked mischief. "I merely showed Raoul that he could flaunt his proudest possessions in my face all day long and not impress me at all!"
After an appalled moment, Jehanne had to laugh, and she saw Lady Marjorie covering her lips with her hand.
But in the midst of all their other troubles, she didn't want to have to deal with this.
* * *
The first action Jehanne took was to speak to Raoul. As Raoul had pointed out once before, it was Galeran's job, but the men might both think it a great joke.
As the sun began to set, and the household gathered for the evening meal, she threaded her way through servants loading the tables with food. She came up beside Raoul, where he chatted with one of the manor's men-at-arms.
"Sir Raoul."
He turned to her with a smile, and the other man bowed away. Jehanne thought she detected a watchful look in Raoul's deceptively smiling eyes, however. Because she had been so absorbed by her own problems, she hadn't really noticed what a dangerously attractive man he was.
Though she was completely enamored of a man of lighter build, she could recognize that a tall, well-muscled man who handled his body with skill and grace had a certain elemental appeal.
Clean bones under golden skin, white teeth, and lively eyes were all made worse by a distinct flare in his southern garments.
And in addition to all this, he had that aura that Galeran had—an undefinable power that caught any woman's interest, and held it if she were free.
He was no training partner for someone like Aline.
"Sir Raoul, I am somewhat concerned about your behavior with my cousin."
He drew her gently out of the way of a man bearing a large bowl. "Has Lady Aline cause to complain of me?"
Jehanne realized she was being sparred with too. "She has made no complaint. But you must know that she plans to pledge herself to God."
"That is a worthy calling. For those who are called."
"You think she is not?"
"I think it wise for her to find out."
Jehanne found him altogether too arrogant. "The fact that you can heat her blood does not mean she lacks a vocation to the religious life."
"Surely that depends on the amount of heat generated." He looked frankly into her eyes. "Lady Jehanne, would you want Aline stuck within the convent walls if it does not suit her nature?"
"No one has ever forced her to that. It is her own choice...."
"Sometimes people change their minds. Sometimes they are fortunate, and have not yet committed themselves. Don't you think we should let Aline explore her feelings before she decides?"
Jehanne fixed him with a steely gaze. "Just make sure, sirrah, that her feelings are all you explore, or your exploring days may well be over, crusader or not!"
* * *
Raoul watched Jehanne swish away to join Lady Marjorie, then worked his way around the crowded hall to come up behind Aline, where she sat pensively rocking Donata's cradle with one foot.
"You don't play fair, my lady."
She jumped, then swiveled, a charming and revealing blush flooding her cheeks. "What?"
"Setting your cousin to threaten to cut off the bits of me that most alarm you."
Her color deepened. "I did no such thing!"
"So you do admit their power?"
She turned away, nose in the air. "I believe I showed you earlier that your manly attributes have no power over me."
He bent down to whisper in her ear. "We were interrupted. Care for a rematch?" She was a genius with perfumes, the pretty witch. Rose, vervaine, and others too subtle to detect wafted from her skin to tantalize his senses, a sweet eternal promise of womanliness to balance the harsh world of men.
"Don't be silly," she hissed, rather denting his romantic musings on sweetness. "If you had any decency at all, you wouldn't have flaunted yourself like that."
He straightened. "I was swimming, Lady Aline. An innocent activity. A virtuous one after dirty work. If you had any decency at all, you wouldn't have stared."
She avoided his point by reaching down to fuss with the baby's blanket.
"Perhaps we should repeat the match on more equal terms," he said. "Naked to naked. See who blinks first."
The sound of stifled laughter made him smile.
Ah, but he loved a lass who could laugh at such matters.
Gently, he touched the nape of her neck where her short veil showed golden curls springing free of her thick plaits.
The image of what she would look like, her lush curves naked except for the mass of her hair, tended to keep him awake at night.
Or his wakefulness could just be because he'd not had a woman since Ella.
She had quieted beneath his touch.
"But," he said, still teasing at that sensitive spot, "as your trainer, I think you should avoid my naked body until you are more advanced at basic maneuvers."
She twitched from his hand and looked up, eyes wide and steady, though she could not control her color. "Raoul de Jouray, you could dance in front of me stark naked without giving my willpower any trouble at all! I doubt the same could be said in reverse."
Raoul burst out laughing. "Oh, Aline. You are the most foolish, flaunting, green cadet I have ever encountered."
* * *
Even while discussing teething problems with Dame Marjorie, Jehanne watched the encounter between Aline and Raoul with a frown. It was like seeing a summer storm gather, knowing nothing could stop the lightning. One could only pray it would do no harm.
She could send Aline back to Burstock, but to give her sufficient escort meant weakening their own party, and she would let nothing endanger Galeran.
She could tell Galeran to get rid of his dangerous friend, but apart from the discourtesy of it, she liked the fact that her husband had such a warrior at his back.
And anyway, there was some validity to Raoul's arguments. Everyone had accepted that Aline wanted the religious life, that she had little interest in men and marriage. If that was not true, better she learn it now than when she had taken her vows.
She was distracted from her worries by a serving woman who gave her a small roll of parchment. "From whom?" she asked.
"I dunno, Lady. The gateman said it came for you."
Jehanne unrolled it, glad that she could read, even though her skill at writing words was severely lacking.
At the sight of Raymond's name, her breath caught.
The note said simply: I wish no harm to you and yours, but will not lose you and my child. Bring Donata to the church in the village before blood is shed.
Almost she went—though alone—thinking she could protect the men she had entangled. But then she remembered that Raymond might have tried to kill her husband and was plotting to steal her child. He did not deserve her protection.
She went instead to Galeran. "I need to speak with you."
He excused himself from his father. "What is it?"
She passed him the note.
He must have read it three times before he looked at her. "How did you get this?"
"A servant."
He studied her. "Were you tempted to go?"
How much she wished such questions were impossible. "Yes," she said honestly. Then, seeing his expression, she quickly added, "But only to protect you."
"Protect me?"
She turned away distractedly. "Protect both of you. If anyone suffers for all this, it should be me."
He gripped her arm down to the bone. "You would protect Lowick?"
She looked back at him, seeing how her honest words were like daggers in his flesh. She'd shield this man from every hurt, but she kept having to wound him with honesty. Despite the pain of his grip, she spoke steadily. "Yes, but I would never choose to protect him over you."
He let her go. "I will never understand you, Jehanne. How can you...?" But then he shook his head. "I'm going to check out this church. You are not to leave the manor."
She caught his sleeve. "Don't go alone!"
"Do you think me a complete fool?" It was not an idle question.
She quickly let him go. "I can't stop worrying over you, Galeran. Don't take it amiss."
He sighed. "Forgive me. My male pride pricks at me sometimes." He touched her cheek gently with his knuckles. "At least, even if you thought about it, you didn't dash off to try to handle this single-handedly. For that, I thank you."
"I'm studying hard to be a proper woman."
"Heaven help us all." But it was said with a smile.
When he left the hall with four of his men, she did not follow, but went, as a proper woman should, to sit by her child's cradle and spin.
There she prayed that her husband wouldn't kill or be killed by the father of her child.