There was not enough rain in heaven to quench the heat of his desire for this woman.

Rowan’s gaze rose to meet hers. To discover the answer to his question. What he saw confounded him.

“Dear God, lass, don’t look at me so! Did I not say it would be your own choice? Cast me aside if you cannot love me, but don’t look on me with fear.”

For a moment her body seemed to melt against him, eager to mingle her flesh with his. It stiffened again at his words. Had he said anything so terrible?

Rowan gasped with shock and pain as her fingers twined in his hair and wrenched his head back.

“Damn you, FitzCourtenay, you are a devil! Why could you not just take what you wanted? Why must you make me choose? Can you not see it will tear me apart…?

Acclaim for Deborah Hale’s recent books

The Bonny Bride

“…high adventure!”

—Romantic Times Magazine

A Gentleman of Substance

“This exceptional Regency-era romance includes all the best aspects of that genre…. Deborah Hale has outdone herself…”

—Romantic Times Magazine

“…a nearly flawless plot, well-dimensioned characters, and a flame that will set your heart ablaze with every emotion possible!”

—Affaire de Coeur

My Lord Protector

“Invite yourself to this sweet, sensitive, moving and utterly wonderful tale of love from the heart.”

—Affaire de Coeur

The Elusive Bride

Harlequin Historical #539

#540 MAID OF MIDNIGHT

Ana Seymour

#541 THE LAST BRIDE IN TEXAS

Judith Stacy

#542 PROTECTING JENNIE

Ann Collins

The Elusive Bride
Deborah Hale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Available from Harlequin Historicals and DEBORAH HALE

My Lord Protector #452

A Gentleman of Substance #488

The Bonny Bride #503

The Elusive Bride #539

For my daughter, Deidre Siobhan Hale,

and my sister, Ivy Marion Moore.

Their spirit inspired Cecily Tyrell and enriches my life.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Chapter One

A twig snapped under footfall.

Its report shattered the golden hush of the glade. The girl jumped at the sound, a batch of freshly picked beans spilling from the lap of her gown. Why? she cursed herself. Why had she lagged behind the novices to steal a moment’s sweet summer solitude? Her father had sent her to the safety of this remote priory, out of the path of civil war. But in a land where every man’s hand was turned against his neighbor, safety was an illusion, and secluded places held their own special dangers.

She willed herself to stillness, like an arrow nocked on a taut bowstring, aimed and ready for flight. By fierce concentration, she forced her breath to the pace of a reverent Ave: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us…”

A stirring of the underbrush drew her wary glance. Into the sun-dappled clearing stepped a man, leading a gray horse. Catching sight of the girl, he froze. For a moment they stood, each surveying the other. Her look and posture said clearly, Keep your distance. His pleaded, Don’t give me away.

The girl saw a hard lean warrior, whose mail surcoat glinted beneath a well-worn, gray traveling cloak. His ruddy bronze complexion boldly proclaimed him a Crusader. He had the stance of a man proudly in his prime, belying the frets of silver in his dark hair and close-trimmed Norman beard.

The man saw a lithesome, virginal figure, in a coarse-woven tunic and gown, a thick plait of lustrous chestnut hair falling over one shoulder. She reminded him of a young hind, with her delicate brown beauty and her wild, wary vulnerability.

As the man obligingly held his ground, and the girl graciously held her tongue, each began to relax. The man’s gaze strayed hungrily to the tangles of ripe beans and vetch. He’d been traveling in haste and stealth, not sparing the time to hunt or gather food. He would grab a quick meal now, even if the lady should call an alarm.

The girl stared greedily at the horse. How long had it been since she’d felt the firm, powerful barrel of a good mount beneath her, and the wind in her hair? She would brave any peril just to stroke the nose of that magnificent animal.

She stooped and pulled a carrot from the ground. Carefully stepping over the rows of vegetables, she walked steadily toward the stranger and his horse, holding out her offering.

Snatching up the pale orange morsel, the man snapped its crisp flesh between strong even teeth. Dear God, how delicious it tasted! Even the dirt that clung to the root, for it was good honest English earth, moist and loamy.

As the girl watched him devour the carrot, her alarm turned rapidly to amusement. A dimple blossomed by the corner of her wide, mobile mouth. “I meant that for your horse, sir.” Laughter bubbled musically beneath her words.

The man jerked his head toward the gelding. “I’m hungrier than he is. Grass is plentiful, but not to my taste.” The voice was deep and warm, the smile wry and sardonic. As if to affirm his master’s comment, the horse dipped his lean head and cropped a mouthful of tall grass at the edge of the clearing. The girl reached out a hand and passed it caressingly over the big beast’s neck.

Then she remembered the man. “Wait there,” she said eagerly. “I’ll get more. For both of you.”

Making a rapid circuit of the garden, she plucked a handful of beans, pulled a carrot here and an onion there. She thrust the vegetables at the man, holding back one carrot for his mount. She held out her offering to the horse, who snipped it in two mannerly bites. The stranger dropped to the ground and wolfed down his portion with noisy gusto.

“I thought you said she was right behind you!” A deep feminine voice rang out from nearby, coming closer with each word.

“Sister Goliath!” hissed the girl, pulling man and mount back into the safety of the forest’s thick foliage.

“She was right behind me,” insisted a nasal whine.

Into the glade garden charged a bearlike nun in a rusty black habit. By her side scurried a chinless ferret of a novice. They stopped short and peered around the empty clearing.

“Now where can she have got to?” demanded the nun. “Mother Ermintrude wants to see her about something. It’s almost time for Mass—”

“Probably wandered off into the woods,” suggested the novice, with the self-righteous implication that she would never indulge in such improper conduct.

“Heedless child,” fumed the big nun, planting her hands on her hips. “She ought to know wild places can be dangerous.”

Watching from the shadows of the forest, the girl smiled to herself. She knew wild places could be dangerous. She also knew they could be fiercely compelling—like the man who stood behind her. She could feel his breath rustle her hair. She could smell the warm musk of sweat and leather.

Sister Goliath took several menacing strides toward the verge of the clearing, peered into the dense curtain of foliage and bellowed, “Cecilia!”

The man clutched his horse’s bridle and instinctively brought one hand up to clap over the girl’s mouth. He could not take the chance that she might betray him. She did not struggle as he pressed her back against him, but yielded as to a lover’s embrace. The warrior suddenly remembered how long it had been since he’d held a woman. His body ached with the pleasure of it. His breath quickened. A strange chill rippled up his back. Was it excitement?

Or fear?

The nun glowered into the trees. Apparently, her sun-accustomed eyes could not penetrate the green shadows of the forest. “It’s no use,” she barked at the novice. “We’ll have to call out the others to help us look.” With a snort of exasperation, she lumbered off.

As she watched Sister Goliath turn away, a dizzy wave of relief broke over the girl. For an instant she savored the masterful feel of the man’s arm about her, his hand firmly covering her lips. If Fulke DeBoissard had ever taken such liberties with her, she’d have laid him out cold. But this man was nothing like her odious suitor. Indeed, in the few moments of their acquaintance she’d sensed with fierce certainty that he was like no man she had ever known.

Much as she enjoyed the close contact, however, part of her took offense at the man’s presumption. She could hold her tongue well enough without his help. If she had wished to raise an alarm, six stout Crusaders could not have stopped her. She’d teach this bold fellow to underestimate her.

Parting her lips slightly, she ran her tongue over the flesh of his fingers. The man jerked his hand away as though she’d spat hot coals into his palm. She skipped out of arm’s reach with a puckish chuckle.

“I’d better catch up with them,” she whispered gleefully, “before they have the whole priory swarming this place. Stay in the woods until you hear the bell for midday Mass. Then you can both come out and eat your fill.” She pointed to the west. “There’s a stream over that way, where you can drink.”

Lunging forward, the man caught her hand. “My thanks for this aid, lady. I hope I haven’t got you into trouble.” He nodded toward the waning sound of Sister Goliath’s scolding.

Amber sparks of mischief glinted in the girl’s deep-set brown eyes. She flashed him a smile, blinding in its radiance. “Oh, I’m used to it.”

With hardly a rustle of the leaves, she was gone. For an instant her presence seemed to shimmer in the spot where she had stood, bright and elusive as a shaft of sunlight.

“Sister Gertha! Here I am, Sister!” she called. Kilting her habit to her knees, she bounded through the garden.

The tall black bulk of the nun loomed over her at the entrance to the garden clearing. “Where did you get off to, you vexing girl? I was about to raise the alarm. How many times have I told you? You can’t be too careful these days, even out here. Stay with the others. Don’t go wandering into the woods after every butterfly or whiff of wildflowers.”

“I’m sorry, Sister Gertha,” blurted the girl. “I had to relieve myself and I didn’t think I could make it back to the privy in time.”

This frank excuse left the big nun temporarily speechless. Finally she managed to sputter, “Well, I never did hear such immodest talk! Hurry on now, or we’ll be late for Mass.”

The girl knew he must be listening. It brought a tingle of warmth to her loins, speaking of such intimate matters in his hearing. She gave a brazen toss of her head and grinned at her own audacity. Striding up the path to the chapel, invigorated by her little adventure, she began to wonder about the identity of her fugitive. He must be King Stephen’s man, going so stealthily through lands loyal to the Empress. If so, she’d given aid to the enemy. Try as she might, she could not make herself regret it.

Watching from the safety of the forest, the man had to clap a hand over his own mouth to stifle a hoot of laughter. When the glade was deserted once again, and the Angelus bell had begun to peal from the distant priory tower, he reached up and absently scratched his horse behind the ear. Half to himself and half to his mount, he chuckled, “They’ll never make a nun out of that one. But pity the poor fool who takes such a creature to wive!”

Six weeks later, on a stifling afternoon in early September, Cecily Tyrell answered another summons from Mother Ermintrude. Uncertain which recent transgression had landed her there, she entered the prioress’ parlor in an attitude of extravagant contrition.

Mother Ermintrude glanced up from her breviary. “Cecily, come in, my child. We must talk, you and I.”

Was it a good sign or a bad, the girl wondered—the prioress calling her by her English name instead of the Latin Cecilia? Having little use for the insipid saint on whose feast day she’d been born, Cecily Tyrell hated being called Cecilia. She never could imagine herself going meekly to martyrdom, singing hymns.

“If it’s about that business with Sister Veronica,” she burst out, “I’ve apologized, I’ve confessed and I’ve done my penance thoroughly. I just couldn’t believe she had no notion of how men are…well…equipped. I never expected the little goose to faint dead away when I told her. I wonder if Sister Veronica isn’t a bit too delicate for God’s work—”

The prioress’ firm, practical lips twitched. She gestured to a low stool near her own chair. “This has nothing to do with Sister Veronica, nor with the hedgehog you smuggled into chapel last week.”

Cecily reddened. “How did you know about that? Even Sister Gertha didn’t—”

“My eyes are somewhat closer to the ground than those of our worthy Mistress of Novices,” said the diminutive Reverend Mother, with wry understatement. “They sometimes spot mischief even her rigorous scrutiny misses.” Those mild blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “You have enlivened this place, my child, I’ll say that for you. You’ve shaken us from pious solemnity and shown us the virtue of taking delight in God’s creation. How we will miss you—even Sister Goliath.”

Cecily opened her mouth to ask how the prioress had come to hear of her irreverent appellation for Sister Gertha. Then she realized the import of Mother Ermintrude’s benediction. “Miss me? I’m not going anywhere. You aren’t sending me away, are you?” Cecily clenched her hands together in earnest supplication. “I promise, Reverend Mother, I’ll try to do better. I won’t wander off anymore. I won’t jest in the refectory. I won’t—”

The prioress held up her hand for silence. “You have been sent for, Cecily. You must return to the world and take your place in it.”

“Oh no, Mother. I’ll go to Brantham. Just say I may return when Father gives me leave.”

If she could have stayed at Brantham, among the people she loved, it would have been different. But this summons could mean only one thing. She’d be forced to wed and leave Brantham forever. The priory was her second favorite place in the world. Once she took the veil, no one could oust her from it.

The prioress shook her head. “My dear child, have the past months not taught you the folly of trying to mold yourself in directions God does not intend? Our community took you in at your father’s behest—to give you sanctuary in these violent times, to help you recover from the deaths of your brothers and to see if you had a true vocation for the sisterhood. All three charges we have fulfilled. You are safe and sound. You have put the early agonies of grief behind you. And you have proven time and again that you will never make a good nun.”

Angry tears welled up in Cecily’s eyes. “You don’t understand, Mother. I must take the veil. What else is there for me? Banished from Brantham and my people. Slave to the whims of some dolt of a husband. Here, at least, women have power over their own lives. I want that!”

The prioress reached out a smooth, worn hand and touched Cecily’s cheek. “Power? You have learned little from us, I fear. We are brides of Christ. We strive always to serve him with obedience and devotion that go beyond the bounds of mortal marriage. You have a harsh opinion of men, Cecily. Long ago, before I took the veil, I was married to a good kind man—no dolt, I assure you. Have you never met a man you could care for as a husband?”

“Never,” snapped Cecily, though her conscience pricked as she thought of the mysterious traveler she had encountered in the garden several weeks ago. He had come to her in dreams every night since. “I was plagued with suitors before the war broke out, all keen to get their hands on my dower lands. Edwin Goddard—he’s slow and stupid as an ox. Roger Vaughan—he’s a well looking fellow, but vain and boastful as a Gascon. As for Fulke DeBoissard—” her nose wrinkled at the thought of her most persistent suitor “—I wouldn’t wed that oily toad if he was the last male creature in Christendom!”

“I have heard a story,” ventured the prioress, “of a toad turned into a prince by the kiss of true love. Many a weak man has been improved by marriage to the right woman.”

“Our Holy Mother herself couldn’t salvage DeBoissard.”

“Cecilia Tyrell!” The prioress looked genuinely shocked. “You blaspheme.”

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Cecily pleaded desperately. “I didn’t mean to, honestly. It just slipped out.”

The prioress sighed. “Do you need any further proof of how poor a nun you’d make? An ungovernable tongue is no asset in a religious community—nor in a marriage, either. I doubt Our Lord would be flattered that you chose him because you could find no worthier spouse.”

Mother Ermintrude’s words knelled with gentle finality. Cecily would find no refuge from marriage within these walls.

“Gather your clothes,” urged the prioress. “There is a young man waiting for you in the portress’s stall.”

“Young man?” Cecily jumped up, her disappointment momentarily forgotten. “Why didn’t you say so? It must be Geoffrey.” Without a word of leave-taking, she bolted out the parlor door. Tearing down the hall, she then bounded straight across the priory garth. How she had missed her youngest brother—the lone survivor of four.

“Geoffrey!” she cried, hurling herself upon the young man who sat in the portress’s stall, hungrily consuming a bowl of pottage. At the last second she checked her headlong rush.

“Harald?” She recognized the son of Brantham’s castellan, her brother’s devoted companion. “Where is Geoffrey? I thought you were both with the Empress at Winchester.”

The boy started back from Cecily’s voluble onrush, then recognition dawned. He fell to his knees, pressing her hand to his cheek. It felt unnaturally warm to the touch. Acting on instinct, she reached out and pushed a lank lock of flaxen hair back from his forehead. Cecily gasped. A jagged gash marred his left brow, encrusted with dirt and dried blood.

“Harald, what happened to you?” Yet again she asked, “Where is Geoffrey?”

The boy ignored her questions. “Lady Cecily, I was sent to fetch you. You must come at once. Brantham is in an uproar!”

Calling for the herbalist, to dress Harald’s wound, Cecily felt her pulse quicken at the summons. She was not going back to make some odious marriage, after all. Brantham needed her.

For the first time in her life, her father needed her.

When they rode into Brantham Keep several hours later, Cecily took one look and wished she could scurry back to the order and peace of the priory. It was worse than anything she’d imagined during her headlong gallop from Wenwith.

The tide of civil war had swollen, then ebbed, leaving its flotsam and jetsam washed up in Brantham’s courtyard. Wounded soldiers who had crawled away from the fray, looking for succor or a decent place to die. Refugees from little villages overtaken by the onrush of battle. A pitiful band of lepers whose lazarhouse had been put to the torch by King Stephen’s Fleming mercenaries.

The bailey seethed with erratic, purposeless movement, danced to the jarring minstrelsy of cries, shrieks and groans. Vaulting from her horse, Cecily strode into the midst of the chaos. Drawing her lips taut with two fingers, she let loose a loud, shrill whistle that pierced the general din. In the second of amazed silence that followed, she bellowed her orders.

“Castle folk to me!”

Without a beat of hesitation they flocked to her, faces sweat streaked and exhausted, anxious eyes lit with a wary glimmer of hope. Cecily turned to the most familiar of her father’s retainers.

“I want anyone who can move on to do so before night falls. Give them whatever they need to speed them on their way. Get buckets and dippers, and make the rounds with water. Carry the worst wounded to the great hall. Father Clement and Mabylla can tend them. Harald, you police the lepers. Get them food and water, but see they keep to their corner of the bailey. Tell them I’ll be around with medicines once I get things sorted out. Someone fetch me the cook.”

“Lady Cecily. Thank God you’re home.” Piers Paston bustled out from the keep. Dropping to one knee, he enveloped her fingers in his massive hand. “We have been overwhelmed!”

“So I see.” Cecily could scarcely contain her asperity. The big, ruddy castellan looked so distraught, she instantly relented. “This visitation landed on you out of a blue sky and you haven’t had a quiet moment to collect your wits. You did right to send for me. I have had the leisure of a good ride to mull over the problem. Take two or three fellows and find them cloth and lumber to build awnings. These poor people will need shelter from the sun tomorrow, or we’ll have deaths from the heat. Have we dead already? Is anyone digging graves?”

Behind Cecily, a woman’s voice rang out, imperious as her own. “If only I’d had a general of your caliber with me at Winchester, Mistress Tyrell…”

Cecily spun about, dropping into a deep curtsy. She knew the voice, though she had last heard it all of four years ago. It would take longer than four years for her to forget her liege lady and idol, Empress Maud, Lady of the English.

“Your Grace. Welcome again to Brantham. I regret you find us in a worse case than when you left us.”

From her sidesaddle atop a dainty white jennet, the Empress swept a glance over the chaotic scene in Brantham’s bailey. “I could say the same,” she replied, with a faintly ironic smile. “By the sound of things, you are well on your way to setting the situation to rights. Let me not hinder you. We are on our way to the Devizes.”

With a gracious but forceful sweep of her hand, she indicated her small retinue, including a tall knight Cecily recognized as Brian FitzCount. “Can you spare us a night’s lodging?”

Cecily turned to Piers Paston with a questioning look. “Your own chamber is ready, Mistress Cecily,” said the castellan. “The gentleman can lodge in my quarters.”

Having quietly dismounted, FitzCount lifted the Empress down from her horse. Cecily could hardly contain her admiration. Clad in a borrowed gown and veil of indifferent quality, fresh from a siege and rout, Maud still looked every inch a queen.

“Show our guests to their accommodations,” Cecily ordered Sire Paston. “See that they are made comfortable.” To the Empress she added, “Forgive my poor hospitality. If there is anything you need—”

“You have your hands full,” the Empress reminded her. “When you have dealt with your duties, I would have a word with you.”

A good hour passed before Cecily felt confident that Brantham’s manpower had been effectively harnessed to meet the crisis. The sun had sunk low on the horizon, making the western wall cast a long shadow over the bailey forecourt. A faint breeze stirred the air, but carried no smell of approaching rain. In the lull, Cecily finally let herself think of her brother. She’d intentionally refrained from asking about Geoffrey, hoping no one would volunteer bad news. With all her other responsibilities delegated, she could no longer postpone an inspection of the great hall.

He must be there, among the wounded.

Cecily clutched the scrip Sister Hawise had filled for her. Since she’d completed an apprenticeship of several months in the priory herbarium, her personal oversight would be most useful in ministering to the sick and injured, including her brother.

After squinting into the setting sun, her eyes took several minutes to accustom themselves to the dim light inside the keep. She climbed the winding stairway to the great hall, relying on habit and memory to compensate for her darkened vision. A wave of cool moist air wafted up the stone steps from the cellars. It made Cecily all the more conscious of the beads of sweat on her brow and the smarting flush in her cheeks.

By the time she reached the hall, her eyes had grown used to the gloom. At the entry she hesitated, scanning the orderly rows of pallets laid out on the rush-strewn floor. Prone bodies twitched and rustled. A low murmur of sighs, groans and snoring all but drowned the sound of muted voices. There was nothing muted about the smell, however. The heat had melded odors of blood, vomit and excrement into a single overpowering stench. Feeling her gorge rise, Cecily raised a hand to her nose.

A short plump figure rose from its crouch beside a nearby pallet. Mabylla Paston swooped down on Cecily, her veil askew and a smudge of dried blood across the bridge of her blunt nose. The picture of harried competence, Mabylla had obviously kept better order in her domain than her husband had kept outside, in his.

“My dear chick, they told me you’d come. A welcome sight you are, I must say.”

Cecily held out her scrip. “Healing herbs from Wenwith. You’re welcome to them, except a few pots of salve I’m saving for the lepers.”

Mabylla took the scrip and rummaged through its contents, drawing out one linen bag after another and holding it to her nose for identification.

“Sanicle!” she cried. “And betony. I was fresh out.” She accepted Cecily’s offerings as eagerly as any pretty trinket from Saint Audrey’s Fair.

Again Cecily glanced around the hall. “Where have you put Geoffrey?” she asked. “How does he?”

Mabylla stopped digging in the scrip. “Didn’t they tell you?” Tears welled up in her tired, kindly eyes. “He’s laid out in the chapel, dear lad. He was past our poor skills to heal.”

Cecily did not cry out or fall faint. Mabylla’s plain words of regret only confirmed the uneasy foreboding she’d carried for months like a weight upon her heart. After the Battle of Lincoln, when word had reached Brantham that Giles and Hugh were among the casualties, Cecily had wondered how much longer Geoffrey could survive. In her seclusion at Wenwith, she’d grieved for him as bitterly as for the others.

“He made a good confession and died shriven.” Mabylla tried to console her. “There’s that to be thankful for.”

“Father?” Cecily asked haltingly.

“With him in the chapel. Still holding his poor hand, I expect. He’s taken it so hard—his last son. It’ll do him good to see you, my dear. You run along to him. We’ll manage here, and all the better for the medicines you’ve brought us.”

The body of Geoffrey Tyrell lay on a low catafalque before the altar of Brantham’s chapel. Despite the past days’ upheaval, he’d been washed, clean shaven and laid out in fresh clothes. The boyish contours of his face sharpened by a month of fasting during the siege of Winchester, his features were settled into the composed serenity of death. Walter Tyrell knelt beside his son’s corpse, clutching one thin, lifeless hand.

He looked as though he’d shrunk inside his clothes, so loosely did they hang upon his once robust frame. In the months Cecily had been away, her father’s hair had turned snow-white. For over twenty years she had fought against his efforts to mold her into his milksop idea of a lady. Just as vehemently she had fought for his attention. At least when he’d argued or scolded, she’d had the satisfaction of knowing he was paying her some mind. Now, seeing her father so aged and broken, Cecily felt a pang of protectiveness for him. Gently, she laid a hand on his bowed shoulder.

“Father…”

He started and turned to her.

“Ah, Cecily. For a moment, you sounded just like your mother.”

Not knowing what else to do, or how to offer him comfort, she slipped to her knees beside him and murmured the familiar phrases of the Pater Noster.

“At least Geoffrey came home to die.” Her father sighed, when she had finished praying. “He won’t be like the others—buried far from home, by strangers.”

Cecily nodded silently. Let him find a crumb of comfort where he might, as Mabylla had taken consolation in Geoffrey’s shriven death. No sense reminding her father he still had one child left, and expecting him to draw solace from that. What was she, after all? Middle child of five. One bitch in the litter, he had once referred to her, not meaning it unkindly.

A cipher. An afterthought.

No matter that she’d outrun, outridden and outfought her brothers, time and again. To him, she was only a daughter and counted for nothing.

“You should get some sleep,” she said. “I’ll stay here.”

He did not even turn to acknowledge her suggestion. “Plenty of time to sleep later.”

“The keep is in an uproar, with all the wounded soldiers and refugees,” Cecily remarked hopefully. Action and responsibility might prove an antidote for this daze of grief that had enveloped her father.

He shrugged one gaunt shoulder, hearing her plea but plainly past caring.

“The Empress has come.”

Walter Tyrell stiffened. His leonine head reared. “Has she, the proud slut? I’ll not stir a step for her sake. Rather, have her come here, to see what her arrogance has cost me.”

Cecily’s mouth fell open. Until this moment, she’d never heard her father speak of the Empress with less than veneration.

“Had the crown fair in her hands,” spat Walter Tyrell. “The Pope behind her, Stephen in chains. I thought it was over and we’d won. I’d never have let Geoffrey go with her to London if I’d known how things would turn. Couldn’t she have smiled and cajoled the burgesses with a few soft words and empty promises?”

“That’s Stephen’s way.” Cecily would brook no criticism of the Empress, not even from a father maddened with grief.

“There’s a time for Stephen’s way,” her father growled, “and that was it. But no, she had to get on her high horse and put everyone’s back up. They called her a niggish fishwife.”

Cecily bit back a hot retort. Maud’s enemies sneered at her proud nature. Some of her own followers even grumbled against it. Such talk always made Cecily’s blood boil. What did they expect from a granddaughter of William the Conqueror? He’d been a proud, ruthless man by all accounts, yet none of his subjects had held it against him. He’d been a strong king, and strong kings made for a secure, stable kingdom. A few years of Stephen’s weak rule had bred lawlessness and chaos. But Maud was a woman and it galled the barons to submit to her will.

Walter Tyrell bent forward, until his forehead rested on the lip of his son’s bier. “I’ve paid for her arrogance with my flesh and blood.” With wrenching, rasping sobs, he began to weep.

Cecily stood behind him, torn between pity and wrath. She reached out, but stopped short of touching his heaving back. For a moment her hand hovered. She’d spent so long fighting her father, she had no idea how to comfort him. Would he even accept an overture from her? Wrenching back her hand, she turned away and stole out of the chapel, leaving her father alone to lament.

Back out in the bailey, she saw that the sun had set and the air was beginning to cool. The refugees were clustered in tight groups near the walls, bedding down on piles of straw, talking in hushed, anxious tones.

Cecily’s fatigue suddenly smote her like a mailed fist. She’d risen well before dawn at the convent. Could it be this same day? She yawned deeply. Since noon she’d ridden many miles, taken charge of a castle in turmoil and tried to grasp the reality of her brother’s death. Cecily’s stomach rumbled ominously, reminding her that she had not eaten since the noon meal at Wenwith. Both food and sleep would have to wait until she had spoken with the Empress.

Trudging up the spiral staircase of the north tower toward her own solar, Cecily wondered what the Empress could want with her. She hoped the interview would be brief.

A torch burned brightly in the high wall sconce, and a delicious breath of cool air wafted in through the open tower window. Piers Paston had evidently recovered himself enough to attend the comforts of their honored guest with food and wine.

“Here you are come at last, my child.” The Empress held out her hand and drew Cecily down beside her, onto a low bench covered with embroidered cushions. A waiting woman brought two goblets of wine, then withdrew from the room at a nod from her mistress.

Cecily took a sip of wine, hoping it might revive her. She did not want to offend the Empress by falling asleep in the middle of their talk.

“I would have been here sooner—” she began, intending to apologize.

Maud raised a hand. “No need to explain. You have responsibilities. And grief. I regret the loss of your brother. He was a good lad, serious beyond his years. I hope my sons will grow to be such fine young men. Your brother died that my Henry may one day rule this land, as his grandfather intended. I do not undervalue his sacrifice.”

For the first time since Mabylla had blurted the news of Geoffrey’s death, Cecily felt tears welling up in her eyes. Impatiently, she dashed them away with the back of her hand.

“He was only three years younger than I.” She tried to keep her voice from breaking. “I mothered him as best I could.”

The Empress politely averted her eyes. “I know how it feels to lose a brother,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “I lost my brother, William, when I was about your age. It changed my whole life, as the loss of your brother will change yours.”

Cecily nodded. She knew the story of Prince William’s death. Newly married, he’d been returning to England when the ill-fated White Ship was wrecked. With him had perished any hope of a peaceful succession.

Abruptly the Empress changed the subject. “Do you remember the day I first came to Brantham?” A smile warmed her strong, comely features, as she referred to the heady days of her arrival in England. When nobles dissatisfied with Stephen’s weak rule had flocked to her standard.

Cecily nodded, biting her lip. A faint blush prickled in her cheeks. She could picture herself, a leggy sixteen-year-old clad in boy’s tunic and hose, pleading the Empress’s leave to join her army. She would give her life for Maud’s cause, Cecily had vowed with the fierce earnestness of which only youth is capable. With no hint of condescension, the Empress had gently declined Cecily’s valiant offer. Instead, she’d taken Robert and Giles.

“You pledged your life to me.” The Empress smiled over her wine. “Do you still hold to that pledge?”

With trembling hands, Cecily set her cup on the floor. Did she understand aright? Was Maud finally desperate enough to accept her service? “Yes. Oh yes, your grace!”

Clasping her hands in petition, Cecily felt her hunger, weariness and grief consumed in a white-hot flame of heroism. “You’ll see. I’ll be as good a soldier as any of my brothers. I will fight for you to the last breath in my body.”

Maud folded her hand around Cecily’s. “No doubt you would, my dear. I disdain neither your ability nor your courage, believe me. But I have a far more important mission in mind for you than simply bearing arms.”

“You want me to spy on the Flemings?” Cecily cried, flushed and eager.

“I want you to marry Rowan DeCourtenay,” countered Maud.

“Marry?” Cecily echoed, unable to disguise the plaintive disappointment in her voice.

Chapter Two

“Marry?” thundered Rowan DeCourtenay. “Never!”

In the great hall of Devizes Castle, several powerful barons glanced toward DeCourtenay and the Empress. Naked fear whitened more than one face. Thwarted in her quest for the English throne, Maud clung tenaciously to her royal prerogatives—such as the unquestioning obedience of her followers. Even her most loyal supporters could not cross her without feeling the nettle sting of her tongue.

Either DeCourtenay merited special consideration or her reception in London had taught the Empress to curb her volatile temper. Maud replied to his outburst with calm reason. “Why ever not, you stubborn ass? It would benefit all concerned. The girl is heiress to an honor that stretches over four counties, which you could add to your own. She would gain a canny warrior to protect her lands.”

“And you?” Rowan flexed a shoulder, uncomfortable in borrowed robes. Truth be told, he felt uneasy and vulnerable without the reassuring weight of his armor. “How does this marriage benefit you?”

Before the Empress had time to reply, he demanded, “Who is this woman, anyway? Twenty-three and never married. Tell me, is she a hunchback or a half-wit?” Rowan grimaced. There were men in England, one or two in this very room, who would not scruple to wed any monstrosity if it promised to enlarge their holdings. He did not count himself among that unprincipled number.

Yet there was something to be said for the notion of wedding a plain or simpleminded woman. She’d be less apt to engage a heart he dared not risk again. And she wouldn’t draw every man within miles, the way Jacquetta had.

Other conversation in the hall had fallen silent. The Empress deliberately turned her back on their audience, pitching her voice for his ears alone.

The drop in volume did not detract from the force of her words. “The girl is well-made—quite pretty, in fact. And you would underestimate her wits to your peril.”

“A shrew, then.” Rowan could not quite bring himself to voice what he truly suspected. Was the creature a wanton, perhaps with the disgrace of an illegitimate child?

“Hold your tongue and listen!” flared the Empress.

Rowan clenched his mouth shut with rather ill grace. It would take a greater fool than him to ignore the dangerous flicker that leapt in Maud’s ice-blue eyes.

“Cecily Tyrell was but a child when my cousin usurped my crown. Since then, Brantham Keep has been in the eye of the maelstrom. Most of Tyrell’s near neighbors declared for Stephen.” Her measured words took on an edge of cold wrath. Woe betide those neighbors if Maud should ever win the throne.

“Few from our side dared venture that far east to go a-courting.” She cast a withering glance around the hall. Fevered pretense of conversation broke out among the clusters of noblemen, feigning to have missed both the Empress’s scornful remark and the implication of her contemptuous look.

“Besides,” continued Maud, “the girl had four brothers in line ahead of her for the Tyrell honor. No one expected her to inherit. I gather she once entertained an inclination to take the veil….”

Rowan almost groaned aloud. Just what he needed—a nun for a wife! Jacquetta’s pained reluctance on their wedding night would seem like wanton passion by comparison. All the same, a nun might recognize the importance of keeping vows.

“Impossible.”

The Empress heaved an exasperated sigh. “You are not some villein and the miller’s daughter, who can wed to suit their fancy. The higher the station one is born to, the more that hangs on a bride choice—you know that as well as I.”

Rowan heard a wistful note in her voice, and it shamed him. Barely out of the nursery, Maud had been wed to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Widowed at the age of twenty-four, she’d been made to marry Geoffrey of Anjou—a swaggering cub ten years her junior. Whether she’d felt any affection for her first husband, Rowan did not know. But he had ridden with her to Rouen for her second nuptials. He’d seen her face on her wedding day.

Perhaps Maud also recalled their progress to Rouen, when she had set out to charm her escorts: Gloucester, FitzCount and DeCourtenay. Her voice softened. “If you cannot be devoted to one another, then be bound by your common devotion to my cause. Who knows but it may prove the stronger bond in the long run. I need Brantham to hold the way open to Reading and Wallingford. You are just the man for the task.”

Perhaps affronted by his look, or tired of cajoling where she was used to commanding, Maud stiffened. “Do you despair of my cause, DeCourtenay? Do you think Stephen’s chit of a wife has me on the run? Is that why you refuse to declare for me publicly by marrying Cecily Tyrell?”

“Of course not!” Rowan drew himself up to his full height. “How can you doubt my allegiance? I returned to England from my cousin’s court in Edessa to pledge you my sword.”

The Empress eyed him coldly. “Then put some muscle behind your hollow promises of support, sirrah. Your bride awaits you at Brantham. Mount and ride out to claim her by sundown. Or mark me, I will take it as a sign you have thrown in your lot with Stephen.”

By an act of will, Rowan bent his head and his stubborn knees. Sweeping a low bow, he pressed his lips to Maud’s ring. “As you command, my liege.”

Wielding a glare that dared any of the assembled nobles to gloat, Rowan DeCourtenay quit the hall. He admired Maud and knew her cause was just. That didn’t mean he had to like the imperious shrew. At that moment, the notion of a meek, biddable nun for a wife seemed almost appealing.

“Cecily!”

The word reached her faintly, as though from a great distance or through a thick fog. She had dreamed herself back in the glade at Wenwith again, reliving her encounter with that compelling fugitive. As she had almost every night since their meeting.

Savoring the feel of his arms around her, Cecily ignored the call—it must be Sister Goliath.

“Do wake up, Mistress Cecily! There are armed men at the gates. Sire Paston says Brantham is surrounded!”

The threat to Brantham rent her dream, like a broadsword cleaving a heavy tapestry. Cecily wrenched her eyes open.

“Armed men?” she croaked in a voice hoarse from sleep. “Has Stephen’s queen brought her Flemings to besiege us?” She rolled out of bed, groping for her gown.

The serving wench was in such a state of alarm that she proved no help at all in dressing her mistress. “Near as bad.” She wrung her hands. “’Tis my lord DeBoissard and his men.”

“Fulke!” Cecily spat the name as though it were the vilest oath in Christendom. “What’s brought that stoat sniffing about?”

Descending the winding stairs of the tower two at a time, she burst out of the keep, crossing the ward at a dead run. Servants, children and chickens scrambled out of her path.

She reached the gatehouse with scarcely enough breath to gasp, “How now?”

Brantham’s castellan and marshal turned on her with faces grave and drawn.

“DeBoissard’s men rode up, bold as you please, and surrounded the castle, milady,” explained the marshal, as if she could not see for herself. “They’ve made no hostile moves otherwise, so I’ve bid the archers hold their fire. I’ve asked my lord Tyrell his will, but he says nothing. What are we to do, my lady?”

Cecily glanced toward the narrow window. She could see DeBoissard and a small mounted retinue waiting before the main gate. Even from this distance, she sensed the aura of arrogance that hung around him.

“I suppose we must ask him what he wants with us.” Her tone left no doubt that she considered it an odious chore.

“We’ve asked, my lady,” replied the marshal. “He says he wishes to speak with you.”

“Oh, he’ll get his wish,” Cecily muttered as she strode to the window. “What brings you to Brantham, DeBoissard?” she called down. Some unholy urge made her add, “Have you switched your allegiance back to the Empress?”

Fulke doffed his elaborate capuchon with an oily flourish. “Lady Cecily, welcome home. I see your sojourn at the nunnery has not dulled your wit. I’ll own, I toyed with the notion of joining the Countess of Anjou. Somehow I knew she’d wrest defeat from the lap of victory. I am Stephen’s man yet. And you?”

The note of polite mockery in his voice goaded her. “At Brantham we hold to our sworn fealty. The Tyrells are no oath breakers.”

If he minded the insult, DeBoissard gave no sign. “A noble ideal, to be sure. I fear I am of a more practical bent.”

“A more treacherous bent, you mean!” Cecily tried to bite back the words. She must not give Fulke any greater excuse to attack Brantham.

The knave merely laughed indulgently—a sound that piqued Cecily’s rage to an even keener pitch. “It does my wit good to spar with you again, dear lady.”

Under her breath, Cecily muttered, “I’d sooner spar with you over drawn daggers, foul viper.” In a louder voice she called down, “Is that your answer to my question? Have you ridden here with an armed force only to trade quibbles with me?”

“I have come to trade words with you, mistress,” he replied. “Though fonder exchanges than this, I hope.”

“Be plain for once in your life, sir. I have no patience for your riddles.”

“You are tetchy, Lady Cecily. But no matter. I fear the strain of your new status has overset your usual gentle nature.”

“What do you know of my status?” Leaden fear weighted Cecily’s stomach.

“Only that you are now heiress to Brantham, my dear. Pray accept my most tender condolence upon the death of your brother. Has the House of Tyrell not lost enough in its misplaced fealty to Maud?”

The mannerly insolence of his question undid her. Scooping a handful of loose pebbles and dirt from the gatehouse floor, she flung them through the narrow aperture at her tormentor.

“Whoreson! Pox-ridden spawn of a bawdmaster! I’ll show you what I’d lose for the Empress.”

One stone found its mark, smiting the nose of Fulke’s mount. When the big beast reared, he was hard put to master it. Cecily watched his contortions with vicious glee.

By the time he got his animal back under control, Fulke was panting slightly from the effort. Though he continued to bait Cecily with pretended courtesy, his strident tone betrayed an effort to curb his temper.

“What pious language girls pick up in convents nowadays. Perhaps your exile to a religious house explains why you’ve never learned the proper way to welcome a suitor.”

“Suitor?” Cecily sneered. “I wouldn’t have you for a suitor even before you betrayed your oath to the Empress. There is nothing on God’s earth that would make me accept you now. If that is the only reason you are here, you might as well leave.”

“And let some other ambitious baron pluck the fair heiress of Brantham?” Fulke shook his head. “I think not. You will open your gates to me. We will wed and I will gain Stephen’s favor by offering him the jewel of Berkshire to fortify his hold on England.”

Cecily opened her mouth to scoff that it would do little good to curry favor with an imprisoned king. Then she recalled the rapidly changing fortunes of war. With Maud’s ablest general, the Earl of Gloucester, captured at Winchester, the Empress would have no choice but to ransom Stephen for him.

With so much else in doubt, Cecily clung to a pair of constant certainties. “I will never open Brantham to you. And I will never take you for a husband, DeBoissard. Now be gone!”

“You may hesitate to take me for a husband, Lady Cecily, but I’ll take you to wive—willing or no. Consider carefully before you resist. It holds a certain piquant appeal for me.”

The blatant threat made Cecily’s knees go vexingly weak. She reached for the solid stone of the window casement to steady herself. The Holy Church had tried for centuries to impose Christian principles on the sacrament of marriage. For all that, marriage by rape remained distressingly commonplace.

“You have an hour to decide,” Fulke declared in a smugly triumphant tone. “After which Brantham will be under siege until you experience a change of heart. Be warned, though, I am not a patient man. Once I take Brantham, I will put one of your people to the sword for every day you have held out against me.”

With that, Fulke and his attendants wheeled their mounts and rode out of arrow range.

The sour taste of fear clung to Cecily’s tongue. She was no coward. The thought of physical pain scarcely troubled her. Yet she shrank from imagining what Fulke would do with her and the perverse pleasure it would give him to subdue her struggles.

Drawing a slow, calming breath that didn’t work, she turned from the window. With her father lost in the dark pit of his grief, responsibility for Brantham and all within its walls had fallen on her shoulders. It weighed heavier than she had expected. For herself, she could face almost anything, but leave it to Fulke to exploit the one chink in her armor—her urge to protect those she loved.

Looking from the castellan to the marshal and back, she posed a question as difficult to ask as it must be to answer. “Can we hold out against them until help arrives?”

Both men had known and doted on her since her earliest childhood. Now they shuffled their feet and cleared their throats. Stubbornly, they avoided her searching gaze.

“Our walls are as stout as any in five counties.” The marshal’s tone belied the hopeful nature of his words. “I doubt DeBoissard has the means at hand to breach them.”

Fleetingly, Cecily thanked God that her grandfather had squandered the old king’s bounty erecting the thick stone shell that housed Brantham Keep. This was no time for blind optimism.

“But?” She uttered the word she knew both men were thinking.

Before either could reply, she intercepted a furtive, hopeless look that passed between them. In it she read her doom.

“We’ve brought in less than a tithe of the harvest,” admitted the castellan. “With all the extra mouths to feed…”

He left her to draw the obvious conclusion.

“As for our crops in the fields—” the marshal shook his head dolefully “—DeBoissard will put ’em to the torch by sundown if we say him nay. Then…”

Cecily needed no help to reckon that sum. “Then, even if we withstand the siege or drive Fulke off, Brantham will starve this winter.”

The men confirmed her dire prediction with grudging nods.

“Then there’s no help for it.” Cecily tried in vain to quell her roiling innards. “I must make ready to wed.”

“No!” gasped Piers Paston. “There has to be another way.”

In fact, one had occurred to her. A desperate measure to be sure, but this was a desperate situation. She dared not take a soul at Brantham into her confidence. Their only safety lay in innocent ignorance.

“My hand is not worth the lives of all my people.” She strove to look apprehensive but resigned. “I must go to my chamber and pray for strength to bear God’s will.”

“This is no will of God,” muttered the castellan bitterly.

“In that case,” replied Cecily, “I must pray for Our Father to show me his will in this. On no account disturb me until preparations are complete for the wedding. One concession I would have you beg of DeBoissard—that he let the refugees depart in peace, immediately. This is not their fight. They have suffered too much already.”

“Very well, ma’am. Surely even a churl like DeBoissard can show that crumb of compassion.” His jaw clenched tight, the castellan looked at Cecily with eyes glowing in admiration.

She cracked a wry grin in reply. “Where Fulke’s concerned, you’d do better to count on his self-interest. I doubt he’ll want a ward full of refugees and lepers underfoot.”

Laying a hand on the castellan’s stout arm, she wordlessly charged him to tend Brantham and her father faithfully until she could return.

As she slipped out of the gatehouse, Cecily heard the marshal calling for a messenger to deliver Brantham’s terms for surrender. Fighting to curb her eager stride, she recrossed the bailey and entered the keep. Any castle folk who saw their lady gain the stairs might have been forgiven the assumption that she was bound for her private chamber above.

Instead, after checking to make sure she was not observed, Cecily descended the spiral staircase, moving deeper and deeper into the cool, deserted cellars. Pulling a burning brand from one of the wall sconces, she squeezed past barrels of wine and piles of timber. At last she came to a small door, which she quickly opened and entered.

On the packed earth floor of the dungeon cell lay the stiff corpses of two lepers who had died on the previous day. To preserve the bodies until graves could be dug, Cecily had ordered them to be stored here. Finding a resting place for her torch, she knelt by the taller of the two corpses. Her gorge rose at the thought of what she must do now.

“Which would you rather, Cis?” she scolded herself. “Peel the clothes off a dead leper, or suffer Fulke DeBoissard to peel the clothes off you?”

With that, she began to divest the body of its coarse, pungent garments. As she saw what sore mutilations the disease had wrought upon the dead man, her distaste soon muted to pity.

“Forgive me for this last indignity, Old Father,” she whispered to the corpse as she eased the clothes from his waxy, withered limbs. “I pray your soul now dines at Our Lord’s table, clad in ermine and samite.”

When she had changed into the leper’s garb, Cecily took her own mantle and folded it carefully around him—like a mother tucking her child into its cradle.

Stealing through the cellars once more, she climbed a ladder and slipped through a trapdoor into the stables. In the distance she could hear the faint commotion of refugees being ejected from Brantham. As casually as possible, she limped into the ranks of the lepers, blessing the rough cloth mask that hid her supposedly grotesque features.

The ruse would never have occurred to her but for Empress Maud. Besieged at Winchester, she’d allowed herself to be wrapped in a winding sheet and laid in a coffin. Smuggled out of the city for burial, Maud had escaped the tightening circle of her enemies to pursue the fight another day.

Cecily had every intention of doing the same.

But where to go once she got clear of Brantham? Grudgingly, Cecily admitted she hadn’t thought that far in advance. Most of their neighbors were the King’s men—though none so contemptibly as Fulke DeBoissard. All the same, if she showed up at their gates, few would scruple to take her hostage and marry her off to some he-creature of the family in hopes of enlarging their holdings. As an unwed heiress, she was now a tempting prize for an ambitious man. Clearly, she had only one way open to her.

“You there!”

At the shout from behind her, Cecily turned, silently berating herself for a dangerous lapse in concentration. When and if she got safely away from Brantham there would be time enough to mull over the problem of where to run for sanctuary.

One of Fulke’s men-at-arms strode toward her. What could he want? Did her disguise not fool him? Through her mask of loose-woven sacking, Cecily cast a futile glance at Brantham’s gate. The last of the genuine lepers were making their halting way through. Did she dare make a bolt for it?

Fulke’s man towered over her. Cecily’s heart galloped like a stag beset by a pack of baying hounds.

“Where are ye bound, leper?”

Fearing her voice would give her away entirely, she hesitated.

Before she could think what to do or say, a shout from behind drew the guard’s attention away from her.

“Damn you to hell, Maud!” Her father charged into the bailey with his sword upraised.

What madness was he talking?

“Who let you in?” he roared. “I’ll show you the welcome you can expect at Brantham from now on!”

In his grief-addled mind, did he think these were the Empress’s men entering the keep?

Cecily opened her mouth to call out to him, even though it would expose her identity.

One of Fulke’s bowmen was quicker.

An arrow tore into his shoulder, spinning him around. The guard who had been questioning Cecily forgot all about her, running toward the wounded man.

Though she longed to follow, Cecily dared not.

In his present state of mind, her father was more than likely to give her to DeBoissard with his blessing, to spite the Empress. Once he had wed the heiress, Fulke would not hesitate to kill her father. While she was at large and might wed some other man, Fulke would see her wounded father well tended.

The best service she could do him was to keep on walking out the gate. Why, then, did it feel like a betrayal?

Cecily shuffled past Fulke DeBoissard with her eyes downcast, even though she reminded herself he could not see them through her mask of sacking. To her relief, the ambitious coxcomb took no notice of a humble leper. Instead, he demanded loudly to know what was going on.

The last voice she heard was her father’s. Still fulminating against Maud, in spite of his wound. To Cecily, it felt like his bitter denunciations were aimed squarely at her.

She lagged behind the lepers until she was out of sight from Brantham’s walls. Then she dived into the hedgerow and began peeling off the mask and bandages.

Her father’s outburst would not buy her much time. Once in possession of Brantham, Fulke would demand to see his bride. After a brief search for her, they would surely guess the manner of her escape. Then they would set out to hunt her down.

Cecily quailed at the thought.

Could she hope to evade Fulke’s hounds and horsemen long enough to reach help? Again the question of where to run reared its thorny head. Would Maud still be at the Devizes? And if she was, could she spare arms and men to retake Brantham?

Conscious that she must move, no matter where, Cecily set off through a familiar stand of forest. Hopefully she would gain a little time by going northeast and doubling back, rather than heading due west as they would surely expect her to do. As she moved through the trees, keeping one ear cocked for sounds of pursuit, she reluctantly decided upon her goal.

Ravensridge. The DeCourtenay stronghold in Gloucestershire.

With luck, Rowan DeCourtenay might also have received the Empress’s marriage edict. Cecily would barter herself in exchange for his help in liberating Brantham from Fulke. Though the idea of marriage appealed to her as little as ever, she acknowledged the unpalatable truth that an heiress needed a husband.

If she must accept the yoke of matrimony, she might do worse than a warrior newly returned from the Holy Land. The Christian kingdoms there were under increasing pressure from the powers of Islam. It would take but a word from the Pope, or a few inflammatory sermons from some charismatic preacher, to touch off another Crusade. Which might lure DeCourtenay back to the Holy Land and leave his wife her own mistress once again.

What would he be like, this Rowan DeCourtenay? From the deepest recesses of her memory, Cecily recalled hearing his name spoken at Brantham. She tried to summon up the details, but they would not come. All she could remember was that it had been long ago—before the war. And whatever was said had been in low, scandalized tones.

So engaged was her concentration that Cecily did not hear the sound of voices ahead until it was almost too late.

“Where have ye come from, traveler?”

She recognized the baiting contempt underlying this inquiry. Freezing in her tracks, she peered through the leaves into a small clearing.

Two roughly clad men confronted a third, somewhat better dressed. The late morning sun glinted off a wicked looking knife in the hand of one. His partner, almost a head shorter, tossed a small pouch in the air and caught it again. A modest chink of coins issued from the purse.

Bandits.

Indignant wrath swelled within Cecily. During King Henry’s reign, parasites like these would never have dared to venture so near Brantham. During Stephen’s lax tenure, they had become insufferably bold.

“I’m bound for London from Shrewsbury,” said the thieves’ victim, as good-naturedly as if he was talking over a flagon at the local alehouse. “Now that you’ve relieved me of my purse, may I be on my way?”

Oddly lacking in fear, the voice sounded familiar, though Cecily could not place where she had heard it before. Who did she know from the distant Welsh border town of Shrewsbury?

It hardly mattered, she told herself, gingerly picking her way through the woods to circle the clearing. This was no affair of hers. She could not afford the time to stop and intervene. Nor did she dare risk drawing attention to her presence.

The smaller thief continued to toss the pouch of coins. “It’s a very light purse, to carry a man so far.” The tone of menace sharpened his words.

“So I told my master.” The purse’s owner chuckled, still uncowed. “I expect he didn’t trust me with more.”

Sparing only a crumb of her attention to the exchange, Cecily smiled, in spite of herself. If the bandits believed their mark was a simple hired messenger, they were fools indeed. It was a good try on his part, though, aiming to solicit some fellow-feeling from them. At least they might spare his life.

Just then, some trick of the light or scent of the woods rekindled her memory of another noontide encounter in another forest clearing. Cecily recognized the voice belonging to the traveler she’d met in the convent garden. Could it be only six weeks ago? It felt like several lifetimes.

Though she tried to force her feet forward, the stubborn appendages would not cooperate. She tried to reason with herself. Their brief acquaintance gave this man no claim on her. She had already run one small risk to help him. Any debt incurred between them was not hers. Besides, if he had come from Shrewsbury, he must be Stephen’s man. After what Fulke DeBoissard had done today in the King’s name, Cecily felt a distinct lack of sympathy with any supporter of Stephen.

None of this excellent logic succeeded in convincing her to skulk away.

The bandits were making noises more overtly threatening.

Perhaps it was her resentment that such outlaws should flourish on Tyrell lands. Perhaps it was her bone-deep compulsion to help anyone outnumbered and in trouble. On no account was it the urge to renew her clandestine association with a man who must be her enemy.

So Cecily insisted to herself as she hefted a club-size stick of deadfall and advanced stealthily into the clearing.

Chapter Three

As he faced the pair of footpads, Rowan cursed his uncharacteristic lapse in concentration. He’d assumed that caution was an ingrained, unquenchable facet of his nature. What had made him lower his guard just when he needed it most?

It must be that woman. Cecily Tyrell. His intended bride. He had never laid eyes on the creature and already she was causing him trouble.

He’d been so preoccupied with misgivings about his impending forced union that the bandits had him at knifepoint before he realized what was happening. The large one with the weapon looked none too swift of thought or reflex. If he’d been alone, Rowan would have taken the fellow on without a qualm. But the little fox who taunted him and tossed his purse Rowan recognized for a wilier and far more dangerous character.

Though he shrank from the prospect of turning up penniless for his own wedding, Rowan was content to surrender the paltry sum in his money pouch. What troubled him was the possibility of the bandits guessing his true station and holding him for ransom.

Stalling for time in which to plan his escape, he noticed a stripling boy slip from the cover of the woods. If the other pair had stolen upon him as soundlessly, Rowan would not have reproached himself for being taken unawares. A flicker of admiration for the boy’s skill stirred within him. He assumed the lad must be a confederate of the other bandits, until the young fellow raised a finger to lips shadowed by his deep cowl.

“I swear to you, good men…” Rowan pitched his voice louder to cover any sound of the boy’s approach. “My master wouldn’t spare a crooked farthing to ransom my life. He’d pay more to get back that spavined old nag I ride. To speak plain, I’d sooner throw my lot in with you than go back to his service, anyhow.”

With a flick of his thumb, the boy indicated the burly, knife-wielding bandit. In what he hoped was a subtle countersign, Rowan nodded toward the smaller man. If he read the pair correctly, the big fellow would take a moment to react when the boy clubbed his partner. In that moment, Rowan was confident he could disarm the thief. Besides, he doubted a clout on the head would have much effect upon such a great ox.

Bobbing his unspoken agreement, the lad stepped forward, raising his stout stick.

A twig snapped under footfall.

Both the bandits turned at the sound.

Without the instant’s hesitation that might have cost Rowan and him their lives, the boy smashed his hunk of wood down on the smaller bandit’s pate. The blow landed with greater force than Rowan expected from so slight a youth. Before the slow-witted thief had a chance to react, Rowan plucked the knife from his hammy fist and raised it to the man’s throat.

He flashed the boy a grin of gratitude.

Before they had a chance to savor their victory, a cry rose in the distance. “How now? What’s going on there?”

The boy spun around. “God’s teeth! It’s Fulke’s men.”

Fulke? It was a common enough name among the Normans. Still it struck Rowan like a sword-thrust to the belly.

In one fluid stroke, the boy raised his club again and hammered the big bandit. Rowan barely had time to twitch the knife aside before the man fell senseless to earth.

“Come on!” Clutching Rowan’s wrist, the boy hauled him into the woods.

Behind them came the muted thud of horses’ hooves pummeling the soft ground. It took every scrap of concentration for Rowan to keep from pitching face first into the underbrush as the boy pulled him farther into the forest.

Suddenly they were up to Rowan’s waist in water and wading deeper by the second. Still the lad did not let him go, and for reasons he could not explain, Rowan had no wish to break free. Did he sense that the youngster knew this area and would lead him out of harm better than he could manage himself? Or was he simply curious to make the acquaintance of this stripling who had appeared, as if by magic, to rescue him?

“Over here,” whispered the boy, towing Rowan toward a sheet of trailing foliage that hung from the jutting riverbank above.

They slipped behind it, into a brief, secret space. Rowan started as a fish wriggled past his ankle.

No sooner had they gained their refuge than pursuers burst noisily from the trees on the opposite bank. Through the dense curtain of greenery, Rowan could just make out a trio of armed men. They did not look to be confederates of the bandits, yet some warrior’s intuition advised him to stay out of their sight. Realizing the boy had let go of his wrist at last, Rowan reached around to draw the lad back and cover his mouth.

The men-at-arms beat the bushes across the stream, loudly inquiring of each other where their quarry could have gone. Beneath his fingers, Rowan felt the lad’s lips curve into a wide grin. At the same moment, he became aware that his other hand rested not on a boy’s bony chest, but upon the softly rounded breast of a young woman.

“By Our Lady!” The words broke from Rowan before he could check them.

Fortunately, the searchers were making such a din they took no notice. Realizing he still cupped her breast, Rowan wrenched his hand away. The young woman turned toward him, pulling back her cowl. Even in the emerald dimness of their hideaway, he knew her in an instant.

The novice from that tiny priory in the Cotswolds. The one who’d given him vegetables and behaved less like a nun than any woman he’d ever met. The one who had hovered on the edge of his thoughts ever since, no matter how he had tried to banish her.

Once again, her eyes held him in their mischievous, challenging gaze. Trapped, Rowan had no choice but to drink her in. Those features—delicate, yet lively. That hair, like threads of chestnut silk shot with filaments of gold. The lips that parted in a smile of such radiance it lit her whole face from deep within.

Though he tried to buffer himself against it, his heart lurched within his chest. A hundred long-suppressed emotions kindled to life with the searing pain of frostbitten extremities thawed too quickly. Rowan could scarcely restrain himself from breaking out of the thicket and throwing himself on the mercy of their pursuers. What could they subject him to more hazardous than the sweet peril of proximity to this bewitching creature?

“It’s no good,” panted one of the searchers just then. “We’ll never find them in this thick brush without the hounds.”

With general grunts of agreement, they lumbered back toward the clearing.

The girl let out a long, quivering breath. “I hope the thieves have come to their senses and made away with the horses.”

Rowan tried in vain to keep a sober face. Before he could voice any of the questions that warred in his thoughts, the girl slipped out of their hiding place and waded farther downstream.

“I shouldn’t wait for them to come back if I were you,” she called over her shoulder. “If they do catch you up, please don’t tell them which way I’m headed.”

Defenses he’d labored years to erect momentarily prevented him from following her. An overwhelming curiosity made him scale the barricade.

“Please wait!”

She spun around, continuing to wade backward. “I can’t. Those men will return with their hounds. I have to get as far away from them as I can.”

“Let me come with you then.”

She hesitated, and for an instant Rowan could see his own doubt, suspicion and intrigue mirrored in her face. Her searching gaze weighed him in the balance. He shrank from the prospect that she might find him wanting.

“Very…well,” she said at last, with audible reluctance. “You might be of some use. Only, try not to slow me down.”

Slow her down? Rowan almost snorted with contempt at the notion. Never had a woman challenged him so. Yet he sensed it was no idle boast. This strange, compelling creature might well put a man to the test.

Rowan stirred from his musings only to realize that his companion had turned away and widened the gap between them. By the time he closed it, he was panting so hard he could scarcely gasp out the first of many questions that piqued him.

“Since…we’re…going to be…traveling together…don’t you think you should…tell me your name?”

As they scrambled onto the riverbank and set off through more woods, the girl cast him a sidelong glance in which he read amusement mingled with exasperation. “I’ve come to your aid twice now, sir. The forest garth at Wenwith Priory, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Forget her? Rowan could scarcely imagine it.

“If one of us owes the other an introduction,” she continued, “I believe it is you.”

Though his pride bristled at her suggestion, he had to admit the justice of it. “Very well.” He drew a long breath. Could he trust such a creature with the truth of his identity? One minute posing as a nun, the next a thief. Pursued by figures of some authority—to what end?

“My name is…John.”

Perhaps she recognized his hesitation for a lie. “John of Shrewsbury?” Jesting skepticism textured her words.

For reasons not fully clear to him, Rowan felt he owed her something nearer the truth. “John FitzCourtenay of Ravensridge.”

The girl stopped so abruptly, Rowan was several steps past before he realized it.

“Then…you are kin to Lord…Rowan DeCourtenay?”

The sound of his name on her tongue sent a shiver through Rowan. He dismissed the idea as nonsense. Surely it was no more than the cool dampness of his clothes.

“Aye. His bastard half brother.” The outrageous claim almost made Rowan laugh aloud. The bones of his haughty, pious father must be twirling in their tomb! “Do you know him?”

The girl grinned ruefully and set off walking again. “I shall soon know him very well. My name is Cecily Tyrell. By Empress Maud’s command, I am Lord DeCourtenay’s intended bride.”

Rowan walked smack into a tree.

The impact stunned him less than Cecily Tyrell’s revelation.

“Have a care!” she scolded. “If you injure yourself, I shall have no choice but to leave you behind.”

“It’s nothing. I’m…I’m fine.” And so he was. Apart from the wild dance his heart jigged in his chest. Apart from the pulse singing in his ears like a chorus of a thousand bees.

Apart from the all-but-forgotten sensations that stirred in his loins. “You took me by surprise, Lady Cecily.”

Inwardly, Rowan chided himself for not guessing earlier. They’d scarcely met, yet already Cecily Tyrell wreaked havoc with his wits!

“So you know about me! Did his lordship send you to Brantham to fetch me?”

“Yes.” Rowan grasped the suggestion like a lifeline. “I…he spoke with Empress Maud at the Devizes. I was sent to bring you to Ravensridge for the wedding.”

Cecily Tyrell swiftly crossed herself. “Our Lady must be looking out for me. This is the best of good fortune that we should meet.”

Strangely, Rowan found his own spirit resonating to her words. For all she turned his world on end, meeting up with her at this time and in this place did feel like good fortune. “I thought…that is, I wondered if…you might have run away to avoid marrying…my brother.”

“I might have, if it would have done the least good.”

Her disarming candor made Rowan choke with laughter.

“Please don’t tell him I said that. Men are such proud creatures. The fact is, I’m in terrible trouble and I need your brother’s help. If I have to wed him to get it—” she shrugged “—then I will, that’s all.”

The thick, moss-covered trunk of a fallen oak blocked their path. Rowan clasped Cecily’s hand as she scrambled over. Even as he released it again, a faint prickling sensation traveled up his arm. Rowan frowned. His body was behaving in the queerest fashion of late. Once they reached Ravensridge, he would purge himself with a good physic.

Until then, he tried to distract himself by satisfying his curiosity. “This trouble you’re in—does it involve those men who gave us chase?”

Without breaking stride, or wasting breath to reply, she nodded. Then, perhaps deciding she owed him a fuller explanation, she said, “One of my old suitors came calling when he found out I’d fallen heir to Brantham. Instead of posies and courting gifts, he brought an army to secure my hand. The men who chased us are his. No doubt he’s discovered me gone by now. He’ll soon have his people scouring the country for me.”

“How did you manage to get away?”

She stopped then, and Rowan stopped as well, to catch his breath. By her look of intense concentration, he could tell Cecily was listening for sounds of pursuit. She appeared heartened by what she did not hear. When she set off again at a somewhat slower pace, Rowan fell in step with her.

“I made it a condition of Brantham’s surrender that Fulke allow a band of refugee lepers to depart unmolested. I donned the robes of a dead leper and went out with them.”

Rowan shook his head in disbelief. Though he could not help but admire her audacity, there could be no question of his marrying such a woman. He’d partially reconciled himself to the notion of a meek, biddable wife. Those two words were the last he would ever use to describe this unbridled hoyden.

He would take her to Ravensridge, then do everything in his power to help her recover her keep. But marriage? That was clearly out of the question, Empress or no Empress.

Something compelled him to ask, “This suitor of yours—were you fond of him before the war? Do you spurn him now simply because he is Stephen’s man?”

“I liked him very little before.” The aversion in her tone grew harder and colder with each word she spoke. “After the outrage he committed today, there is not a soul in Christendom I detest above Fulke DeBoissard.”

Rowan collided with another tree. This time it rocked him so violently that he fell to the ground, ears ringing.

They rang with Cecily Tyrell’s last words to him. There is not a soul in Christendom I detest above Fulke DeBoissard.

On that point, Rowan decided as he staggered to his feet, they were in complete agreement.

Cecily shook her head. “You must watch where you’re going. Can you go on? We’re almost to the hills. I know some caves where we can hide until nightfall.”

“Lead on, lady. I promise to watch my step from now on.”

When Cecily glanced back, she could see John FitzCourtenay weaving on his feet. She tried to stifle an exasperated sigh. Men could be such a hindrance at times. At least this one wasn’t swaggering and pressing his masculine authority to take the lead. Something about his dogged persistence laid claim to her sympathy.

Dropping back several paces, she took his arm. “Lean on me until you get your balance back.”

When he opened his mouth to protest, she countered, “It will only slow us further if you take another fall. Let us put off our talk until we gain a good hiding place.”

From between clenched teeth he muttered, “Agreed.”

They labored on in silence for some time, saving their breath to scramble up the rising ground. Though Cecily suspected her companion had regained his balance, he made no move to release himself from her grasp.

Thanks be, they would soon reach the caves. Their flight had put an unaccustomed strain on her. Her heart raced far more quickly than usual. Her breath came fast and shallow. A most unwholesome flush stung her cheeks.

One question she burned to pose John FitzCourtenay—were he and his brother very much alike?

When the Empress had proposed she wed the recently returned Crusader, Cecily had imagined a much older man. Nearly fifty years had passed since the Great Crusade. The few veterans of that celebrated conflict were now graybeards, mumbling their porridge and whiling away winter evenings spinning tales of the Outremer for their grandchildren. If she must take a husband, such a one might be borne, though even Cecily’s stout heart shrank from the thought of sharing his marriage bed.

Repicturing Rowan DeCourtenay in the likeness of his half brother, Cecily contemplated her wedding night anew. Such musings provoked very different sensations. Different, but still unwelcome.

While she did not want to fear or despise her husband, she could not afford to entertain tender or, worse yet, desirous feelings for him. A respectful, expedient alliance was what she needed. Cecily had an intuition that such a union would not be easy to maintain with a virile, vigorous husband.

Despite her warning to FitzCourtenay about keeping his eyes on the trail, Cecily found her own gaze straying sidelong with infuriating frequency. What was it about his strong, jutting profile that drew her so? Surely he had accompanied his brother to the Holy Land. The relentless eastern sun had bronzed his face and etched strangely attractive creases around his deep-set eyes. His wide, firm mouth, aquiline nose and dark, emphatic eyebrows signaled his shifting thoughts and moods with subtle power. What was he thinking and feeling at this moment? Was he as aware of her touch as she was of his?

Lost in such novel thoughts, Cecily missed her footing on the steep, uneven ground. As she flailed out, trying to avoid a disastrous fall, John FitzCourtenay caught her arm and pulled her close to steady her. The all-too-pleasant shock of finding herself suddenly in his arms made Cecily’s head spin and her knees weaken. She knew she should pull away, but some rebellious impulse urged her to linger. For the first time within memory, she was experiencing the protective warmth of a man’s embrace.

It intoxicated her.

There was no other way to explain the sensation. It was as though she had rapidly quaffed a goblet of potent wine.

His chest rumbled with a deep, infectious chuckle. “Perhaps now you won’t be sorry you suffered me to come along.”

Something warned her against looking up into his face, but Cecily Tyrell had scarcely heeded a warning in her life—even those of her own reason.

She looked.

His eyes, a piercing silvery-blue, held hers and made her wish she could magically exchange the borrowed leper’s rags for her finest linen gown.

Cecily parted her lips to snap that she wouldn’t have fallen but for the distraction he posed. At the last instant she realized it might not be prudent to admit how much he distracted her.

“If you recall, I predicted you might have your uses.” Despite her best effort at coolness, her words came out like a flirtatious quip.

He laughed at this, though Cecily sensed the mirth came almost against his will.

As the last mellow note of laughter died away, Cecily picked up another sound—faint and distant, but infinitely menacing.

The baying of hounds.

Chapter Four

Cecily stiffened in Rowan’s arms. “They’re coming. With hounds, too. An unlicked whelp could track me to ground in these reeking leper’s rags.”

She gazed into his eyes, and for an instant Rowan longed to drown himself in the lush, brown depths of hers. Fulke and his hounds be damned.

“Go, John. If you stay with me, we may both be taken. Go back to your brother and bid him come to my aid at Brantham.”

The slumbering demons within Rowan roused to echo Cecily Tyrell’s behest. Go! Run. Put as much distance as possible between yourself and this dangerous creature.

Other long-buried feelings stirred to battle these. Leave her—how could he? Surrender another woman to Fulke DeBoissard? Not while he had breath in his body!

As Rowan stood there, paralyzed by the struggle within himself, Cecily slipped out of his embrace. She squinted against the ruthless glare of the sun. It had passed midday, but the haven of sunset was still many dangerous hours distant.

“Did you not hear me, John? Or did the bashing you took from those tree trunks addle your wits? You must leave me now. I won’t have you come to harm for my sake.”

Her words stilled the clamor within Rowan’s mind. In such desperate peril herself, Cecily had spared a thought for his safety. He had no claim on her loyalty, yet she had come to his aid twice. He could not abandon her.

“Take your clothes off!”

Her eyes widened and her whole face betrayed alarm. As well as a shade of something else Rowan could not read.

“Would you have me, now, and take private vows before I fall into Fulke’s clutches? I commend your quick thinking, John. But I fear you’d take me to wive in vain. Fulke would not scruple to put you to the sword and make me a widow ripe for remarriage.”

Rowan’s mouth fell slack. The image of having her here in the open, on this wild bit of upland heath, with the baying of Fulke’s hounds drawing closer, made his nostrils flare and his body rouse.

“You mistake me.” He shook his head to dispel the seductive notion. “If the dogs are following the scent of those clothes, you must take them off.”

He untied his coarse-woven cloak. “You can cover yourself with this and with my tunic.” He shrugged out of the garment. “I’ll take the leper’s rags and lay a false trail for our pursuers while you go hide in the caves.”

For a moment she made no reply, but stared at his bare torso. The warm breeze whispered over his chest like a woman’s breath. More acutely aware of his own body than he had been in years, Rowan wondered if Cecily shrank from the sight of his old battle scars. No doubt a maid, even one of her comparatively advanced years, fancied an unblemished mate. Self-consciously crossing his arms before his chest, Rowan berated himself. He had no business disporting himself like some blushing virgin, fumbling his first conquest.

“Go to, lass. We haven’t much time.” He tossed her the garments, glancing around to see if there was a nearby clump of boxwood where she might disrobe.

Nothing but low heath and bald outcroppings of rock.

“I’ll turn my back if you’re overcome with modesty.” He turned.

“It’s a good plan.” She sounded surprised that he’d had the presence of mind to come up with it.

The wonder in her voice mingled with something like admiration. It sent an exasperating rush of pleasure coursing through Rowan.

He heard her struggling out of the leper’s rags. Against propriety and completely against his will, he stole a swift glance back at her.

And wished he hadn’t.

She’d turned away from him to shed her disguise. Still, in the shimmering heat of midday, he saw more than enough to choke off his breath like a tightening snare.

The way that thick plait of lustrous hair coiled down her back—a golden-brown serpent, beguiling a man to perdition. The creamy whiteness of her skin beckoned his hands, as did the gentle tapering of her waist, the mouth-watering curve of her hips and backside. His gaze lingered over her long, lithe legs until he wrested it away.

Feverishly Rowan forced himself to imagine things cold and loathsome—eels, leeches, ship rats. Anything to divert his thoughts before he disgraced himself by erupting with longing, like some green boy.

“You can turn around now,” said Cecily.

No, he couldn’t. At least, not until the approaching racket of the hounds momentarily drove desire from his mind.

“Leave the clothes.” Cecily clutched his hand. Her touch seared his arm clear up to his heart. “It’s too dangerous. What if they catch you? Come with me to the caves.”

Reluctantly, he withdrew his hand from hers. Fulke’s baying pack held far less threat for Rowan than this slender girl whose spirit bewitched him almost as much as her body. They could only rend him to pieces. The harm she could do him did not bear thinking of.

He shook his head. “If we leave the clothes here, they’ll know you’ve come this way and they’ll keep hunting for you. I’ll use the scent to lead them away, then I’ll come back for you.”

She hesitated for one last moment, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. Rowan yearned to catch it between his.

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” she begged.

At that moment, he would have promised her anything.

“I need you to help me reach Ravensridge, not to perish under some fiendish torture of Fulke’s devising.”

So that was what lay behind her concern for him. She needed his assistance to reach Ravensridge and Rowan. The thought skewered him like the heavy, lethal bolt of a crossbow. He remembered the pain of repeatedly losing the competition for someone’s affection. But losing to himself—that was indeed a new low.

“Don’t fret for me, lass. If there’s one thing my years in the world have taught me, it’s how to take care of myself.” He scooped the leper’s rags from the ground where they lay.

She gave him one last searching look, as though she’d marked the hint of regret in his voice and somehow understood. “Very well, then. The caves are not much farther up this path. I’ll be in the one with—”

“Go. I’ll find you.” Sternly reminding himself he did not mean to bid for Cecily Tyrell’s heart, Rowan licked his thumb and held it aloft to test the slight breeze. Then he set off, moving downhill. He would give Fulke’s pack a chase such as they’d never run before.

Perhaps in the process he would drive these adolescent yearnings from his body.

When Cecily called after him, Rowan willed himself not to glance back. He almost succeeded.

How could a woman look so appealing, wrapped in a man’s tunic and cloak—garments of poor quality, at that? No matter how, Cecily Tyrell did. Fresh, lithesome, vibrant.

“God go with you, John.” She smiled the smile he recalled from their first meeting. The luminous one he had not been able to erase from his dreams. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

He gave a casual wave of parting, not trusting his voice. Something compelled him to protect her at all costs. She trusted that he would return for her, and he knew he would find her waiting. The notion tempted and terrified him.

How she hated waiting!

Cecily huddled on a narrow ledge of rock above the entrance to a shallow cave. She had discovered it long ago, in the vaguely remembered days of her childhood. Back when King Henry had sat securely on the throne and the children of Brantham Keep had been safe to venture forth into the surrounding countryside in play.

How often had she hid here from her brothers during their games? The other caves they would enter and search. But this one they would only peek inside and, seeing no sign of her, move on. If John FitzCourtenay failed in his mission to draw pursuit away, Cecily prayed Fulke’s men would prove no more thorough than her late brothers.

Shivering, Cecily drew John’s cloak more tightly around her. The unseasonal heat outside had not permeated the cave. Yet it was not the clammy chill alone that made her tremble, Cecily admitted to herself. There was also her fear of discovery and capture. And her worry for John FitzCourtenay.

The ghost of his scent rose from his cloak and tunic, haunting her with memories of their first meeting in the priory garden. No man had ever made such a strong impression upon her. She was not sure why this one had, and she was not sure how she felt about it.

She pictured John FitzCourtenay as she’d seen him a few hours ago. Peeling off his tunic. Standing in the noonday sun with his legs planted wide, naked from the waist up. The expanse of his shoulders. The firm flesh of his chest, sown with dark hair that tapered to his belly. The hard, corded strength of his arms. Even the vestiges of old wounds did not detract from his appeal, for they were evidence of a man tempered in combat.

Sister Veronica would have fainted dead away at the sight of him. And how would the little weasel have reacted to his casual demand that she strip naked? A chuckle broke from Cecily’s throat at the very notion. It echoed in the hollow fissures and stone clefts of the cave.

Not that she had received his charge so calmly, Cecily reminded herself. She recalled her rising tide of panic outstripped by one of—what? Anticipation? Eagerness?

Surely not!

Hearing someone or something stirring outside the cave, Cecily held her breath and listened. Had whoever it was heard her laughing to herself? The cave walls muffled sounds from outside, heightened those from within.

What if John’s plan had not worked? What if Fulke’s searchers had traced her here? Worse still, what if they had captured her companion and forced him to divulge her whereabouts?

No. Cecily reined in her runaway imagination. She knew little of the man who would soon be her brother by marriage. But some deep instinct assured her that she could trust him. He would forfeit his life before he’d betray her.

After several more tense minutes of stillness and listening, Cecily allowed herself to relax a little. Perhaps the sounds had been made by a passing animal or the chance slip of a stone. Perhaps she had only fancied them.

How much longer?

She stared down at the wedge of sunlight that penetrated the cave’s mouth. It had narrowed and receded since the last time she’d checked—but how much? Already it felt like many hours since she’d settled into her hiding place. From her experience at the priory, Cecily knew how solitude and inactivity played tricks with time.

Worry for her father suddenly ambushed her, after having dogged her path all day as surely as Fulke’s hounds. Part of the reason she’d pushed herself on was the vain hope that she might outrun it. Perhaps that was why she’d let herself become distracted by John FitzCourtenay—because she desperately needed distracting.

No sense reassuring herself that her father had taken far worse hurts and laughed them off. That was before the loss of his sons had sapped his will and his reason.

Had she been wrong to steal away from him at the time he needed her most?

She tried to divert her mind from that impossibly painful question by laying plans. Surely Fulke would call off the search once darkness fell. Then she and John must get away as far as their legs would carry them through the night. Going to ground at daybreak like a pair of wild creatures. They would need help to stay ahead of pursuit and reach DeCourtenay’s stronghold near Gloucester.

Food. Clothing for her. A mount of some kind. But where to find them? In the lawless years of King Stephen’s reign, there were more folk looking to seize such items from travelers than to give them. Then it came to her.

Rosegarth. The most northerly manor of her father’s widespread honor. If she could hope for aid from any quarter, she would find it there.

Once fed and supplied, she and John must move west as swiftly as possible to reach Ravensridge. There, she would offer herself to Rowan DeCourtenay in exchange for his help in liberating Brantham. For some reason the prospect appealed to Cecily even less than it had a few hours ago.

She wished John would return soon, so she could ask him about his brother. She wished he would return soon so she could reassure herself of his safety. She wished he would return soon to help distract her from fretting about her father. For those reasons, and others she dared not examine too closely, she wished he would return.

Her eyelids hung heavy and her head ached with fatigue, but Cecily knew she dared not sleep. What was taking John so long to return? If he’d accomplished his task, should he not have been back by now? What if Fulke’s men had caught up with him?

Her belly roiled and a weight settled on her heart, like the one she had felt when her brothers went off to war. Like the one she carried for her father in spite of herself.

Cecily tried to will it away, but it would not go. Caring for a man in these violent times was folly, she reminded herself bitterly. It only left a woman prey to worry and heartache. Besides, she didn’t care for Rowan DeCourtenay’s bastard brother. Did she?

More sounds from outside. Faint but coming nearer. Again Cecily froze and listened. This was no fancy. The sounds continued to approach—padding feet and the rapid hiss of indrawn breath. She longed to call out, but caution kept her silent. If John FitzCourtenay had returned, would he not speak to reassure her?

Perhaps she had been wrong about him. Perhaps he’d been captured and forced to betray her hiding place to Fulke.

Footsteps approached the mouth of the cave. Stopped. A shadow crossed the patch of light on the cave’s floor.

Praying to see the silhouette of a half-naked man, she choked back a sob at the shade of a cloaked figure. Her hand closed over a fist-size stone. They would not take her without a fight.

Apparently not satisfied that the cave appeared empty, the figure advanced. Cecily raised her rock.

Rowan peered into the shallow cleft in the rocks. No one here. He’d searched the other caves and found them all empty. Had Cecily Tyrell broken her promise to wait for him? After all these years, he might have known better than to trust a woman.

Something drew Rowan’s gaze to the earthen floor of the cave. Did his wishful eyes deceive him, or did he detect the faint trace of a fresh footprint? He moved closer to inspect it.

A slight stirring from above and behind made him turn just in time to—

“John!”

A slender body hurtled down, knocking him to the ground. Arms went round his neck.

“Why did you not call? You gave me the worst scare. Did you lead Fulke’s pack away? I’m so glad you came back!”

The breath temporarily driven from his chest, Rowan had no choice but to submit to Cecily’s eager embrace. When at last he managed to draw air, the scent of fresh herbs rose from her hair to assail him. Her soft young breasts pressed against the base of this throat, robbing him of breath for a very different reason. A most delicious dizziness overcame him.

“John, will you answer me? Where did you come by this cloak? Are you hurt?”

He remembered his wound. “A scratch.”

Swiftly she drew back and began to examine him. “A scratch, indeed. You’re not the first to tell me that. I’ve seen a man’s arm almost severed to the bone and he would call it a scratch.”

Rowan held out his own forearm, bound with a strip of cloth he’d torn from the dead man’s cloak. “See for yourself. I’ve lost a little blood, but I haven’t been badly butchered.”

Cecily gave his arm a gentle but thorough inspection. “At least it’s on the back of the arm, not the blood-rich flesh at the crook of the elbow.” She sounded much relieved. “I won’t risk unbinding your wound until we have water to wash it clean. It’s not apt to kill you unless it goes putrid.”

Rowan marveled at her cool assessment. Poor Jacquetta had shrieked and swooned at the mere sight of blood. Once upon a time he had thought it sweetly amusing.

He’d been shocked by how little blood she’d shed dying. Only the merest trickle from her mouth.

“That’s an odd spot for a wound, though.” Cecily’s canny observation recalled Rowan from his morbid memories. “What happened?”

He struggled to sit up. His body ached from the exertion of the last several hours. His protests to Cecily notwithstanding, the knife wound did sting. Both were trifles compared with the overpowering throb brought on by Cecily’s too tempting body.

“An arm makes a poor shield.” Flashing her a wry grin, he held it up to demonstrate. “Better a blade in the arm than one in the throat.”

“So Fulke’s pack caught you and you fought your way free?” The intoxicating note of wonder in her voice made Rowan hesitate to admit the less heroic truth.

“No,” he owned at last. “I gave those hounds the slip. For aught I know, they may have run clear to Wallingford by now. I came upon a vixen caught in a snare, so I let her loose.” He chuckled, recalling his ruse. “But not before I tied a strip of your leper’s rags to her tail. No doubt she’ll lead them a merry chase until nightfall.”

“Cleverly done, indeed.” Cecily nodded her approval. “How did you come by your wound then?”

“Carelessness,” Rowan admitted. “I was circling my way back to find you when I ran into a straggler from the hunt. I tried to talk myself free, but he would have none of it. I suppose a man wandering shirtless in that part of the forest would rouse suspicion.”

“And?” Clearly she would not be satisfied until she heard it all.

“And he drew a dagger on me. We fought. I killed him and stripped his corpse of anything that might be of use to us.”

There. Let her see he had blood on his hands, as well as on his arm.

“Bravely done, John!”

Rowan shook his head. To a woman, combat was merely the stuff of thrilling ballads. He must make her see the reality.

“I had no choice. He came at me. It was more than a fair fight, for he was armed and I was not. Still, he was a fellow creature. Some woman’s husband, mayhap. Some lad’s sire. I take neither joy nor honor in having spilled his blood.”

“Of course not.” Cecily knelt beside him, her head cocked at an inquisitive angle that reminded Rowan of a bird. “I’d think much less of you if you did. But you must not take shame from it, either. You only did what was needful to preserve your life and mine.”

Somehow, her brisk practicality did ease his sense of guilt. Though not altogether. “Did they not teach you the sixth commandment at that priory of yours?”

“Is that what troubles you? Thou shalt not kill. Remember, David slew Goliath, and God did not take it ill. If your conscience pains you, when we reach Brantham you can make your confession and do penance.”

He pretended to ignore her suggestion. What would she say if he told her how many years he’s avoided confession? No amount of Pater Nosters or Aves would suffice to absolve the guilt that weighed his heart. No pilgrimage. Not even taking the cross.

Rowan knew, for he had tried them all.

“We have a knife now,” he said gruffly. Time to size up their meager assets. “That’ll come in handy. And I have a cloak, though no tunic. Pray the weather continues warm until we can reach some haven of safety.”

“I’ve been giving that some thought while I was waiting for you.” A wide yawn cut off Cecily’s words for a moment.

How tired she must be after such a day as this. Rowan’s own weariness suddenly crashed upon him with the heaviness of a blacksmith’s anvil.

“I think we should head north,” she continued, “to Rosegarth Manor in Warwickshire. I know the tenants well. I’m sure they’ll give us whatever aid we need to reach Ravensridge.”

Rowan dismissed the idea with a frown. “We can’t afford to lose that much time. We must head west into the lands loyal to Empress Maud. The first castle we come to, I will demand their help in the name of Her Grace.”

Cecily’s lower lip jutted out at a mulish angle. “We’ll never reach a castle to ask for help. Don’t you see? West is precisely the direction Fulke will expect me to go, once he figures out how you led his hounds astray. We would surely be taken.”

Her words stung Rowan. She would question his judgment, after what he’d done for her today? Somehow her opposition felt like disloyalty.

“Not if we’re careful and cunning as we’ve been today. You appear to know this country well. There must be places we can hide during the day. Seldom used trails.”

The gentle brown of her eyes hardened to unyielding amber. “Of course there are hiding places and secret ways, but if we go north we can travel more openly, make better haste.”

There was some sense in that, Rowan conceded—but only to himself. Admitting it to Cecily would show weakness. He was used to commanding, as warrior, leader, lord. She had made him far too vulnerable already. He dared not risk spending too much time with her. The sooner they reached Ravensridge and rallied his troops to wrest Brantham from Fulke DeBoissard, the sooner she would be out of his life.

“Once we reach our first sanctuary we can travel openly—mounted. Don’t you want to see Brantham liberated as swiftly as possible?”

“Yes, but—”

“The longer your enemy holds it, the more difficult it will be to retake.”

She sat silent for a moment. Rowan sensed the struggle within her.

“Very well,” she said at last. “It is a risk we must take. I would not see my people in Fulke’s foul clutches a moment longer than need be.”

“We’re agreed then?” Rowan could scarcely keep the tone of surprise from his voice. What had made her give in so willingly? From his experience of the women in his cousin’s court, he wondered what subtle revenge this one planned to exact.

“Agreed.” Cecily firmly checked her misgivings. She could see John FitzCourtenay’s reasoning, and he had won her assent. She would not go grudgingly, nor watch for a chance to say, “I told you so.”

“There should be a good moon tonight. I’ll lead you as far west as we can venture before sunrise. In fact, I have a hidey hole in mind if we can get that far.”

As though dismayed by the prospect of journeying empty, her stomach rumbled a pitiful complaint.

Cecily pulled a wry face. “I wish I’d had time to gather some food before I left Brantham.”

John FitzCourtenay rummaged through the scrip tied to his belt. “It’s not much.” He drew out a morsel of cheese and a small apple. “All I have left, but you’re welcome to it.”

Something about his uncalculated generosity touched her. “We must share it. You can’t have eaten much more recently than I, and we will both need our strength for tonight’s journey.”

He grinned then. The tanned flesh on either side of his dark eyes crinkled in a way that made Cecily’s insides wriggle like a brook trout.

“This poor bite is scarcely enough to appease the wolf in one belly, much less two. Go ahead and eat it, Mistress Cecily. I have gone hungry many a time and taken no lasting harm from it.” He deposited the cheese and the apple firmly in her hands.

Cecily took a bite of the apple. Early fruit, it was still half-green—firm and juicy. So tart it made her mouth pucker. Yet to the yawning cavern of her belly it was as welcome as manna from heaven.

“Besides.” The jesting tone of John’s voice and expression faltered. “I should be fasting for penance.”

“Nonsense!” Cecily stopped in midbite. “Because you killed a man in self-defense? I should hope Our Lord is more forgiving than you picture him, else I am doomed for certain.”

All the levity had drained from his face now, leaving behind something harsh and bitter. “Doomed? Do not say so. What can you be guilty of more than childish mischief?”

His chiding tone vexed her, but she heard past it to the regret and the old, unhealed pain in his voice. It must run deep indeed, for he was obviously a man inured to hurt. He had barely flinched when she’d examined his knife wound.

“Oh, I have broken my share of the commandments, Master John,” she answered softly. Honor thy father. Thou shalt not covet. How she’d coveted the love her father had borne his sons.

Biting off another piece of apple, she popped it into her companion’s open mouth as he began to speak.

The bristle of hair on his upper lip grazed her fingers. The smooth, moist flesh of his lips and tongue lingered over them. The sensations set Cecily aquiver, like an overwound lute string plucked by an anxious troubador.

She knew the proper, modest response would be to cast her eyes down. Instead, her gaze went swiftly, frankly to his. The blistering intensity of the look that passed between them arrested her breath.

No question—they must make haste to Ravensridge, while she could still bring herself to wed any man but this one.

Chapter Five

While Cecily Tyrell snatched a short, fitful sleep, Rowan kept watch from the mouth of the cave. The sour taste of the apple lingered on his tongue, as did the faint brine of Cecily’s fingertips. It whetted a hunger in him far more ravenous than the one in his empty belly.

To make matters worse, when he’d gruffly bidden her to get some rest before moonrise, she’d urged him to lie down with her and do the same. Knowing such closeness would make him more restive, not less, he’d used the excuse of keeping watch to put as much distance as possible between them.

Not that it mattered.

Their bodies might be apart, but his thoughts flocked to her at every unguarded moment. As impossible to ignore as the throbbing of his wounded arm. He could scarcely believe he’d known her for less than a day. From the instant he’d spied her in that forest-hemmed garden at the priory, something about Cecily Tyrell had drawn him. The unorthodox manner of their second meeting and the long, intense hours of their better acquaintance had only sharpened his response.

Since Jacquetta’s death he had never made a conscious effort to guard his heart. No woman had appealed to him in more than a passing carnal way. Sometimes he’d resisted those urges in a fit of martyrdom. Other times he’d given in to his lust—why not, if he was damned anyway? Always, after the momentary flush of pleasure, he’d repented. Adding another measure to the staggering weight of guilt he would carry to his grave.

What was it about this woman that intrigued him so? Her uncanny beauty, perhaps. That improbable melding of delicacy and strength, like the wild hind. Or was it her bracing forthrightness, a trait he admired in other men, but had seldom encountered in a woman? Both of those, surely, but something more.

Rowan struggled to frame the notion. There was a freshness about her that went beyond mere innocence. An untamed quality outside the limited bounds of morals or propriety. For all that, a deep goodness that beckoned him even as it roused his worst suspicions.

Jacquetta had damned him. Might Cecily be his last chance at salvation? Or might she only make it worse? Rowan was not sure he dared answer that question. But suddenly he understood the ecstatic, suicidal force that must drive a moth to immolate itself within the vibrant, beautiful menace of the flame.

“Cecily. Mistress Tyrell.”

For the second time that day someone roused her from her dreams. Dreams, once again, of a stranger in a garden. Once again, Cecily parted from them reluctantly.

“Wake up now. The moon has risen. It’s time we were away.” There was a sense of urgency in the whispered words, but that was not what lured Cecily awake.

It was the voice. His voice.

Her eyelids fluttered open. In the darkness of the cave she could see only a shadow, backlit by the pale rays of a full moon. Somehow she sensed the force of John FitzCourtenay’s presence. She had never met a man with one so potent.

His scent mingled with the damp, chalky odor of the cave and the lingering musk of some animal that made its winter home there. It felt so right, being close to him in the darkness. A warm, lazy ache pulsed through her.

“Cecily,” he whispered again, louder this time. He must not realize she was awake.

Gingerly, he prodded her. His hand brushed her thigh, perilously close to the crux of that sweet ache.

Before she could stop herself, Cecily gasped.

He pulled back. “I beg your pardon if I startled you, but the moon is up and we must go. You’re harder to rouse than a bear in winter.”

She opened her mouth to say that he roused her far too well. Fortunately, her mouth was dry as dust. All that emerged from her parched throat was a rusty croak. By the time she cleared it with a cough, her tardy self-control had caught up with her.

“Any sign of Fulke’s men while you kept watch?” She sat up and stretched her limbs. Concentrating on their immediate peril might keep her disquieting urges at bay.

“I heard dogs not long ago.” He backed toward the mouth of the cave. “Sounded like they were retracing their path.”

“Let’s hope they’ll all sleep soundly after the chase you led them today.” Slapping the dust off her cloak, Cecily emerged from the cave, into the uncanny warmth of the night.

Moonbeams frosted the countryside with silver. In the black velvet sky, swaths of stars glittered a spectral enchantment. If ever a night belonged to the fairies, this was it.

Before she could think to restrain herself, she reached for John FitzCourtenay’s hand. It was firm and strong, with a reassuring warmth. The touch of it sent an answering spasm of heat pulsing through her.

“Have you ever seen such beauty?” she breathed.

He stiffened. “I’m not apt to notice such things.”

Lifting her face to the night sky, Cecily soaked in the mild breeze that wafted the perfume of ripe fruit and dew. “I pity you, Master John. If ever I doubted divine grace, a night like this would restore my faith.”

“If we stay here much longer, we run the risk of capture,” he reminded her in a voice hard as flint. “Then you’ll need every scrap of grace you can muster. Pray, lead on.”

For some reason his severity struck her as comical.

“At your service, master,” she answered in a tone of good-natured mockery. “Let us head this way. I can marvel at the beauty of the night just as well while I walk. Perhaps better.”

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