The Elusive Bride Page 9

  “While a man may?” Cecily demanded in a scathing tone.

  “Don’t twist my words, wench. Is it not true Stephen took the throne upon the old king’s death because her grace was breeding and could not come to England?”

  For so decent a fellow in many other ways, John FitzCourtenay had some daft notions. “Aye. Base treachery it was to take such mean advantage. Does Lord Rowan feel as you do about her grace? I wonder that you both side with her, in that case.”

  He leapt to his feet, almost braining himself on the low, sloped ceiling of the byre. “We took an oath before the old king to support his daughter’s succession, whether or not we agreed it was the best course.” He headed for the ladder. “Once given, the word of a Courtenay is steadfast.”

  “That’s something, I suppose,” Cecily conceded. “Where are you off to?”

  “I mean to peek out and see where the sun lies.”

  “Take care not to venture outside,” she warned.

  “I am not a fool, lady!” he snapped. “I wonder that you are willing to wed my brother when you have such a poor opinion of men.”

  Cecily tried to stifle a hot retort, but it escaped. “It is not my choice. I have a duty to my people and allegiance to the Empress. Do you think men are the only ones who understand the importance of duty and honor? If I hold most men in low esteem, it is only because they hold themselves far too high. If I call a man fool, or coward, or liar, it’s because I have tried him and found him so. You say all women are weak and foolish, without giving each a fair chance to prove herself.”

  Angry tears scalded her eyes. Cecily clenched her teeth in frustration. How dare this man provoke her to weakness? True, she found many men wanting in wit or skill, but though she indulged in a little good-natured taunting, she did not despise them for it. Having grown up almost exclusively in the company of men, she got on well with them, most of the time.

  Strong, cunning men—men like the Earl of Gloucester, and her father, and John FitzCourtenay—they were a far different kettle of fish. She wanted to admire and respect them. To win their respect and admiration in return.

  Stubbornly, hurtfully, they withheld it, forcing her to oppose them. Was that the kind of marriage she could expect with Rowan DeCourtenay? Ground beneath his heel. Dependent. Powerless. Enslaved.

  Suddenly the air in the loft felt unbearably oppressive. Cecily struggled to breathe. If only she could see some way to avoid this marriage…but still save Brantham.

  Chapter Seven

  “Is it much farther to Lambourn?” Rowan hissed, as he and Cecily hid in the hedgerow, watching the shadow of a horseman gallop past.

  “Just over the next rise.”

  The curtness of her tone and the stiff way she held herself left Rowan in no doubt that she was sore vexed with him. Very well, then. Let her be vexed! He would not come crawling on his knees only to have her withhold forgiveness.

  The events of the night had done little to mellow his temper—or hers, apparently.

  A swath of high cloud veiled the moon, making it devilishly hard to see where they were going. If he’d been in the company of a less skillful guide than Cecily Tyrell, Rowan might have feared they were walking in circles.

  To further hinder them, the countryside swarmed with riders. More search parties of Fulke’s, no doubt, wary of trespassing this close to Lambourn in broad daylight. How they expected to spy the fugitives in the dark, Rowan could not fathom. Maybe Cecily was not so far wrong in judging most men fools.

  Hoofbeats faded into the distance. Without a word, Cecily rose and set off. Smothering a yawn, Rowan hurried to catch up with her. They continued on in tense, guarded silence for some time.

  “There, on the knoll yonder,” whispered Cecily at last. “Lambourn. I shall be glad of a real bed and a decent meal.” A mild zephyr of jest warmed her voice. “Not to mention more modest garb.”

  Her frank humor penetrated his bristling defenses. Could any man be so far gone in sorrow or spite that the inviting sound of Cecily’s chuckle would not lure him into a more agreeable temper?

  “I shall be glad of a better mount than shank’s mare,” he replied. “And one thing more, Mistress Tyrell. Bravely done, guiding us here safely. I do not underestimate your skill or your wit because you are a woman—on that you have my word.”

  He sensed her smile in the darkness, half expecting its glow to make her face visible.

  “Thank you, Master John. I treasure your praise. You are an able fellow yourself. We make a good team.”

  We make a good team. The notion took hold of Rowan and would not let him go.

  They were a well-matched pair. Both decisive, active and strong-willed. But his caution tempered her boldness. Her high spirits leavened his gravity. Was there more each of them could give that the other needed?

  And was it, perhaps, worth the risk to find out?

  Rapidly, they covered the ground to Lord Ranulf’s castle.

  As John FitzCourtenay caught up with her, Cecily heard him say, “Before we enter Lambourn there’s something I must tell you.”

  “Can it not wait, Master John?” Tired, hungry and footsore as she was, she could have scaled the timber walls of the old Saxon castle for the promise of a bed and a bite to eat. “The way my thoughts are spinning, I’m not sure I could make head or tail of whatever you mean to say.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough, but I wanted to be the one—”

  “How now?” barked a guard through the wicket beside the postern gate. “Who goes there?”

  Whatever John had to tell her, surely it would keep until they’d eaten and slept.

  Pulling the cloak tight to cover her scanty attire, she stepped nearer the wicket. “Cecily Tyrell of Brantham Keep.” She resisted the urge to reach up and pluck more wisps of straw from her disheveled hair. “I am a fugitive from the unlawful invasion of my castle by Fulke DeBoissard. My companion and I are on our way to Gloucestershire, where I am to wed Lord Rowan DeCourtenay by order of the Empress. In the name of her grace, I beg your master’s aid—shelter, food and horses to carry us the rest of our journey.”

  After a muttered exchange with someone behind him, the guard held up a torch. “Have your servant step into the light.”

  “He is not my—” Before she could get the words out, John FitzCourtenay gestured for her to keep silent.

  He stepped into the pool of flickering light.

  The sound of another brief, muted conference drifted out the postern hatch. Then Cecily heard the dull scrape of wood against wood as the bar was lifted from within.

  The gate swung open.

  “You may take some vittles and rest in the gatehouse until the master wakes,” offered the guard.

  “Our thanks to you, goodman.” Cecily could have kissed his broad, ruddy face. “Once we have supped and slept, might I beg a change of clothes and a comb, so I may meet Lord Ranulf in a decent state?”

  The fellow swept her a look that suggested she could do with some improvement. “I’ll see what I can find for you, milady. Come this way.”

  He led them into a small, cramped chamber lit by a squat tallow candle. It was luxurious compared with their last two resting places. On a low trestle table, Cecily spied a heel of bread, an ale jug and the remains of a roast fowl. The sight of that scanty, plain fare made her mouth water.

  In the opposite corner of the guard’s quarters, a pile of raw fleeces provided a most inviting spot to sleep. This time, Cecily vowed, she’d stay awake long enough to eat first. An empty stomach had woken her too early in the byre on Ewe Hill. She did not mean to let it happen again.

  The guard must have seen her eyeing the place, and misread her reaction. “Make yourself at home, Mistress Tyrell. ’Tis a mean lodging for the likes of you, but we’ll remedy that as soon as the master stirs. He’ll be passing glad to clap eyes on you.”

  “Thank you for giving us shelter and sanctuary. I hope you won’t think ill of us if we clean up your leavings from supper?”r />
  “Help yourselves, I’m sure, mistress. I’ll go see what I can forage from the bake house. A bite and sup more toothsome than this, I should hope.”

  Cecily took a seat on the bench and unstopped the ale jug. “Don’t trouble yourself.” She popped a morsel of dark meat into her mouth, then promptly violated Mabylla’s rule not to mix eating and talking. “This will stay our stomachs.”

  As the guard left to resume his post, she motioned to John FitzCourtenay. “Don’t skulk in the shadows, Master John, or there may be nothing but bones to pick for your supper.”

  Though he looked rather ill at ease, John sat down, taking the mug of ale she held out to him. Cecily filled one for herself, and they did not set those flagons on the table again until they were drained to the dregs. After that, the two travelers turned their attention to the food, picking the bones of the roast fowl clean.

  As they gnawed on the bread and nursed the last of the ale, John FitzCourtenay recovered his voice at last. “I beg your pardon if I gave offense back at the byre, wishing the Empress were a man.”

  Had that been bothering him? Cecily scarcely remembered their short spat. “Pardon granted, John, but no cause to beg. I side with the Empress because I believe in my heart she’d be twice the king Stephen is. And it galls me that she’s been done out of her rights because she’s a woman. You support her because you swore an oath and you are a man who honors his word. Who can find fault with that?”

  A wide yawn overtook her. Clearly, Lambourn’s strong ale was aggravating her exhaustion. “What’s important is that we are allies in her cause, not our reasons. Don’t mind my hasty temper. We may be all the better friends for a quarrel made and mended.”

  “You have an uncommonly tolerant nature, lass,” he murmured, slowly imbibing the last of his ale.

  The wistfulness of his tone and the profound sadness behind his wry smile stirred something in Cecily. She wanted to take him in her arms, as she had when he woke from his nightmare. He’d pushed her away then. Somehow she sensed he would not push her away now.

  If only she could coax her languorous limbs to move. If only she could truss up her leaden eyelids. If only she could keep her thoughts from scattering in a hundred different directions, like a flock of geese beset by a fox.

  “I had something to tell you, remember?” Rowan set down his mug of ale.

  There could be no better opportunity for him to confess, what with the privacy of the guardhouse and a draft of hearty ale to loosen his tongue. Old Beauchamp was bound to recognize him if no one else at Lambourn did. Rowan wanted to be the one to reveal his identity to Cecily—though he shrank from her reaction to the news.

  “Mmm.” With a languid nod of assent, she cupped her chin in one hand, her elbow propped on the table. “What have you got to say for yourself, Master John?”

  Rowan tried, but he could not bring himself to meet her tired, trusting eyes. Would his deception strain the limits of her tolerance to the breaking point? And why did he care so very much if it did?

  “I spoke true…” The words came out hoarse. His mouth had suddenly gone dry again, in spite of the ale. “…when I told you my father was Linus DeCourtenay. But I was not bred on some serving wench, as I led you to believe. If you’d known my father, you would understand how absurd a notion that is. I’ve often marveled he had blood enough in him to…Well, that’s neither here nor there. My parents were legally wed. My mother was Joan FitzHammon, sister to the old Earl of Gloucester.”

  Rowan stared at the wooden tabletop, scorched in spots, planed smooth as ivory by years of hard use. He waited for Cecily to ask the inevitable question, or jump ahead to the obvious conclusion. She was a sharp-witted lass, after all.

  Did her silence proclaim outrage or contempt?

  He tried to raise his eyes to hers and speak. His courage balked, as it had never balked before a raised sword or a hundred mounted Saracens.

  The moment stretched on and on until his vital organs cramped with the tension. “Must I say it?”

  Still no reply.

  He could take any punishment but this silent censure.

  “God’s teeth, lass!” He forced himself to look at her. “Say something!”

  She did not move, except for the barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest—slow, rhythmic and serene. Head still propped up by her hand, she slept the deep slumber of exhaustion.

  The tightness bled out of Rowan, as though he’d discovered himself jousting with a shadow. Why did he feel like a condemned man unexpectedly reprieved?

  “That’s no place to sleep, lass,” he whispered, not caring that she was deaf to his words.

  He got to his feet, rather unsteadily.

  Cecily did not stir a muscle when he hoisted her light frame in his arms and transferred her to the pile of fleeces in the corner. As gently as any mother ministering to her favorite child, he tucked the coarse but ample folds of the cloak around her. Then, after only a token protest from his scruples, he stretched out beside her.

  The soft contours of her face drew his hand as a flower draws bees. He smoothed a wayward strand of hair that had escaped her braid. The backs of his fingers lingered against her cheek.

  “I hope you’ll understand. I can’t be a husband to you. Perhaps if you were a different kind of woman—bland, docile—we could have wed. For then…you would have posed no…danger.”

  His eyes slid closed, jealously hoarding one final glimpse of Cecily as a talisman to ease him to sleep and keep his nightmares at bay. Indeed, Rowan slept as deeply and peacefully as ever he could recall, until he woke after dawn to a nightmare come true.

  Rough, strong hands gripped his limbs and thrust a gag between his teeth. When he writhed and made desperate noises deep in his throat to warn Cecily, someone shoved a blade to his neck.

  “No one’s goin’ to harm her.” A raspy whisper pierced his frenzy. “Long as you keep still.”

  Rapidly, Rowan assessed the situation. Four men held his limbs—great, sturdy lads they were, too. Between them they could probably split him like the wishbone of a roast fowl. He’d be no use to Cecily then.

  Convinced that her safety depended on his cooperation, Rowan willed his body to go limp—temporarily.

  “I do like a man what can be reasoned with,” muttered his captor. “Long as you behave yourself, she has naught to fear.”

  Perhaps not, thought Rowan, struggling to keep motionless. But you’ll have plenty to fear if you harm so much as a hair on her head.

  He twisted his own head back at a painful angle to catch one final sight of her before they bundled him out of the guardhouse, like a wild boar trussed up for the spit.

  One bare foot peeped out from beneath her cloak as she continued to sleep. Rowan prayed she was only sleeping. For his part, he would not sleep again until she was safe.

  The sun had risen high in the sky by the time Cecily finally woke. After a wide, lazy stretch, she looked around the guardhouse for John FitzCourtenay. A vague feeling of disappointment settled over her when she saw no sign of him.

  Shrugging to herself, she sat up and stretched again. John was probably off cadging something to break their fast or looking for a proper leech to poultice his arm. Or perhaps he was indulging in an exchange of gossip with Lord Ranulf’s retainers. Men often gave women a character for such idle talk, but Cecily knew they were every bit as bad.

  She was just entertaining the urge to go look for him when a tall maypole of a woman entered the guardhouse.

  “Mistress Tyrell, welcome to Lambourn.” The woman made a slight bow. “I regret that our guards were too mutton-headed to wake Father and me upon your arrival. I hope you will forgive our poor hospitality.”

  Rising from her bed of fleeces, Cecily plundered her memory for recollections of childhood visits between Brantham and Lambourn. This must be Donata, Lord Ranulf’s widowed daughter.

  “Sanctuary is the finest hospitality of all, madam.” She wondered how ridiculous her courtesies must sound
coming from such a poorly clad scarecrow. “Is this the first you have heard of Brantham’s plight?” Saying those words gave Cecily fresh impetus to be on her way.

  The chatelain of Lambourn shook her head. “A pair of lepers came begging alms yestermorn. They told a wild tale of the keep being taken. How dreadful for you and how resourceful that you managed to escape. You must tell Father and me all about it while we break fast.”

  She turned toward the door, clearly expecting Cecily to follow. “First, I would offer you a fresh kirtle and gown.”

  “Which I would accept with gratitude.” As they emerged into the sunlit bailey, Cecily smiled, inviting one in return from her rather stiff hostess.

  All she received was a polite, but strangely guarded glance as they headed for the motte. Hardly surprising, considering how she looked, Cecily supposed. Though it would feel good to wear fresh clothes again, she would miss the coolness and freedom of movement offered by John FitzCourtenay’s tunic.

  “Have you seen my companion?” She scanned the bailey, expecting him to appear at any moment from one of the many structures clustered within the palisade walls.

  Even before the woman answered, Cecily sensed she might not be telling the truth, for her gaze skittered sidelong in response to the harmless question.

  “I have not had that pleasure.” She spoke in an odd tone that further stirred Cecily’s mistrust. “I’m certain he must be near about. Shall I have him summoned to attend you?”

  Cecily shook her head. “No doubt he’ll turn up of his own accord, by and by.” What was Donata lying about? she asked herself. And why? What possible import could John FitzCourtenay’s whereabouts have?

  Unless…

  Don’t be daft! Absurd as it was, the suspicion defied her efforts to shake it loose. Was Lord Ranulf’s daughter looking so ill at ease because she had just left John FitzCourtenay…in her bed? A widow did not have to guard her virtue as scrupulously as a maid or a married woman. And Cecily could not deny her traveling companion was a potently attractive man. He’d admitted to having his share of women in the past.