Beguiled By The Forbidden Knight
She looked into the Norman’s face and a serene smile graced her lips. As much as Aelfhild resented the punishments Hilde had bestowed on her for various misdemeanours, at this moment she felt nothing but admiration for the prioress.
The Norman tossed his head back in annoyance. In profile the kink in his nose was obvious. His hair had dried to a lighter brown and was now pushed back behind his ears where it brushed around his collar. His bearded jaw masked his age, but he could have been anything from twenty-five to forty. He was imposingly tall and broad, but now he was dressed in a good cloak of dark-brown wool and his hair was dry, he did not look half as monstrous as he had in the river. Aelfhild could not help but smile at how foolish she had been. No wonder he had mocked her in such a demeaning way when she declared him to be a dwarf. She mocked herself inwardly now.
The Norman glanced around him and took notice of the women for the first time. He took three strides towards them, but stopped halfway across the room as a collective murmur of apprehension swelled.
His eyes roved over the huddle of women appraisingly, settling briefly on each one in turn. He paused longest on Godife, a handsome, dark-haired woman in her late twenties. His eyes crinkled at the corners in obvious appreciation before he moved on. His eyes slid over Sigrun without pausing to where Aelfhild stood behind her in the shadow.
Invisible claws tightened around Aelfhild’s throat as their eyes met. She was unable to tear her gaze away as the tightness eased and the claws became fingers, caressing her neck in a manner that sent her stomach spinning. When the Norman had surprised her in the river his gaze had been unsettling enough. Now it caused her blood to turn hot in her belly.
The Norman’s eyes widened in surprised recognition. A smile flickered across his lips, drawing the scar to one side in a crooked manner that did not diminish the appeal of it. He raised an eyebrow. Panic washed over Aelfhild, obliterating the shameful desire that had reared within her. He was going to reveal that they had already met. She shook her head ever so slightly, sending a desperate plea with her eyes for him not to give away her secret. He closed his lips and reached up with his left hand to brush a lock of hair awkwardly back from his cheek.
His eyes never left Aelfhild’s. The dark-lashed depths that commanded her attention were the colour of burned oak and impossible to break free from even at the distance between them, to the extent that Aelfhild almost forgot his crooked nose and scarred lip. She twisted her skirt in clammy hands, wondering how someone who by rights should be disconcerting to behold could be at the same time so enticing. She decided his eyes were the source of the disconcerting effect he had on her. Currently, they were deeply thoughtful.
Please, don’t, Aelfhild mouthed. She shook her head once more and took a small step backwards.
Slowly, deliberately, the Norman lowered one eyelid, then raised it. He was winking at her! He held her with one final penetrating look before he turned his eyes from her. Aelfhild felt a flush of alarm spread across her throat and chest that by entreating him to keep her secret she had placed herself in his debt.
‘One of these women is the maiden I seek. Am I correct?’ the Norman asked. ‘Let me meet her at least.’
It was halfway between an entreaty and an order and Aelfhild’s interest was piqued. He did not seem overly comfortable issuing commands.
The prioress was granite faced. ‘You see the uproar you have caused. You shall cause no more on this day. I have no proof you are who you say you are or that what you tell me is true. Until I do, you will not remove any of the women who have been entrusted to my care.’
The Norman looked again at the ring in his hand. He closed his fist over it, squared his shoulders and set his feet. A soldier’s stance. Aelfhild realised that she alone was looking at the man holding the ring and he was looking back at her once more. Unsettled to find his eyes on her again, she lowered her head and modestly pulled her long veil closer around her shoulders and face. The Norman slowly turned his head to face Hilde.
‘Then I will wait. May I have a room here or will I have to spend the night in the open?’
Hilde pursed her lips. ‘I am bound by laws of hospitality to offer you shelter for the night, but until the message arrives from the girl’s home I shall not present her to you. I bind you, too, not to name the girl until that time.’
The Norman’s rugged face twisted with irritation, but then he did something unexpected. He bowed deeply to Hilde, took her hand and lifted it to his lips briefly.
‘In your house I shall abide by your wishes, lady prioress.’
Hilde’s face softened and a hint of cream touched her milk-white cheeks. Oh, he was cunning, this Norman!
‘I shall provide you with quarters in our guest rooms. You may bathe and I will have food sent across.’
‘Thank you. I have bathed already, but a meal will be welcome.’ Once more the Norman’s eyes flickered to where Aelfhild stood. Unbidden, her lips began to curve into a smile and for a moment they felt like compatriots, their shared secret a private amusement. She pressed her lips together firmly.
Oblivious to this, Hilde continued. ‘In the morning we shall talk again and see if we can come to some arrangement. Let me escort you there.’
Hilde folded her hands and walked serenely down the centre of the refectory, heading for the small door at the end that led to the outside courtyard. The Norman followed, taking long, easy strides and moving with a languorous grace. He slowed as he neared the women, passing so close to Aelfhild she could reach a hand out and touch him. Could stroke her fingers down his tunic where his broad frame tapered to a lean waist and feel the muscles concealed beneath the cloth. A shudder went through her.
His eyes slid rapidly sideways to land on her once more and he paused for a heartbeat. Had she inadvertently spoken her secret thoughts aloud or were they evident on her face? Shocked at the thought he could discern the unseemly acts she was imagining, she lowered her head and held her breath, only releasing it when he had left the room and disappeared from her presence.
Aelfhild leaned against the wall. Her legs were distressingly shaky and the cold stone did nothing to ease the heat that curled about her throat. She realised Sigrun was talking to her, pulling at her arm.
‘You’re white as ash!’
‘That was the man from the river.’ She was finding it hard to speak without her voice shaking.
Sigrun began to speak, but at that moment Hilde returned. She stopped in front of the gathered women.
‘Why are you not in your seats? Have you forgotten yourselves so much that you are happy to let the food you are graced with turn cold! Be along now, all of you.’
The women settled at their places. Aelfhild barely registered the customary prayers of thanks for the watery gruel. Meals were eaten in silence. Usually Aelfhild disliked this, missing the easy laughter and discussion that had filled Herik and Emma’s house. Now she relished the silence because it meant she was safe from having to make conversation. The meal ended and the women rose to begin their final tasks of the night. Sigrun was the last to leave the table and Hilde drew her aside.
‘Our guest needs serving. Take him bread and stew. He already has wine.’
Aelfhild lingered as she piled the bowls on to the table.
‘Why me?’ Sigrun whispered, voice sticking in her throat.
‘I do not have to explain my reasons to you. Don’t speak to him. If he tries to talk to you, ignore him.’
The prioress swept out. Sigrun looked close to tears. ‘I can’t do it. He looks too terrifying.’
The thought of being alone with him made Aelfhild’s stomach churn with a mixture of trepidation and desire. She doubted Sigrun felt the desire, only the fear.
‘I’ll go instead. Keep out of sight in the courtyard so Hilde doesn’t realise you disobeyed her.’
Aelfhild filled a bowl from the large pot on the table and balanced a hunk of bread on the rim. She paused outside the quarters outside the main building where the occasional guests were housed. She could pretend she was doing a favour to her mistress, but for once Sigrun’s feelings took second place to her own. She wanted to see the Norman again.
Chapter Four
Guilherm sat at the low table, a goblet of weak wine in his right hand. He had removed his cloak and scraped the bristles from his face in warm water and now he was hungry. He was trying to keep his irritation in check by observing a hole in the corner of the room where a mouse had scuttled beneath the floorboards on his arrival. He was placing private bets whether the animal would appear before the prioress deigned to send a servant to provide him with food. He suspected from the expression on her face when she had left him in the sparsely furnished lodging that the mouse would win.
He did not mind eating alone. Solitude was preferable to watching people stare while they pretended they weren’t. The light through the small window was fading rapidly and the single rush light that he had been given would leave him in darkness before long.
Gui cursed his luck. Until he found himself publicly claiming the false identity he had not been sure whether he would actually carry through with Gilbert’s suggestion to impersonate him. If Lady Emma had written to forewarn of his arrival as she had been supposed to do he would have had no need, but clearly she had continued with her intention of making it as hard as possible for Gilbert to retrieve her daughter. Now Guilherm would have to continue the deception until the prioress decided he would be allowed to take the girl away with him.
He thought back to the huddle of women who had witnessed the scene and wondered which of them the girl was. He cast his mind’s eye along the line of women, remembering the shock that had coursed through him when he saw the river sprite again. He should have guessed from the shapeless grey tunic that she had removed that she was an inhabitant of the priory.
He thought further back to the vision of her delicate figure sheathed in the clinging wet linen that had so exquisitely shown off all she had to offer. It had been years since a woman had woken any sense of excitement in Gui and the invisible hand that had pulled his guts out through his chest was alarming in its violence. He drained the goblet and closed his eyes, imagining he had met the girl under other circumstances when he was not so repulsive.
He became so lost in the fantasy that the sudden, demanding rap at the door made him jump. His food had arrived and the mouse had lost the bet after all.
‘Come in.’
The door opened and let in a draught that whistled around his neck and midriff. He gave a slight shiver and spoke without turning.
‘Come in and close the door behind you. The night is chillier than the day promised it would be.’
The door banged shut with surprising violence. Gui looked over his shoulder and found himself face to face with the girl from the river. She had appeared at the point when Gui’s imagination had her on a bed in a state of arousal and a position that would make her blush to learn. A frisson rippled through him at the knowledge she had no idea what he was thinking.
Unlike the look of ecstatic abandon his imagination had conjured for her, however, the river girl’s face bore the angry expression she had worn during that encounter. Her pale eyes bored into his. She held a wooden bowl in her outstretched hands and had moved no further from the door. Gui realised she was waiting for him to say something.
He gave a rueful grin as he realised his manners were sadly lacking now he was no longer in company, then forced it from his face as he realised it could look as though he was grimacing. He cleared his throat.
‘Greetings again, little water sprite.’
She gave him another evil look. Any thoughts Gui had been harbouring that she had come to thank him for keeping her secret vanished.
‘I preferred you when you were using your pretty eyes to beg me to deny our previous acquaintance,’ he said wryly. ‘Now you look as though you’d burn me on the spot if you could summon enough heat in them.’
The girl opened her mouth as if to retort, but closed it suddenly. She took a jerky step towards him. Gui indicated the bowl in her hand with a hunk of bread balanced precariously on the rim.
‘For me?’
She stepped closer to the table and placed it in front of him, face still surly. Gui examined the greasy-looking stew and bread that was mostly crust without enthusiasm.
‘Thank you. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.’
She snorted in a manner that implied she believed differently and for the first time her face lost some of the surliness. Gui broke a small morsel of the bread between his gloved fingers. Dipping it into the bowl caused unidentifiable chunks to rise and sink beneath the surface. The stew did little to soften the hard bread and the taste was as unpleasant as he had anticipated.
‘I can see why you were trying for a fish with this waiting for you here.’
She didn’t speak, but at his second reference to their previous meeting a hint of pink crept across her alabaster cheeks. The flush of colour suited her. She’d spent too much time inside. A couple of weeks in the Breton sunshine would give her the rosy glow that Gui remembered from the girls in his childhood.
She had been lingering by the table, close to Gui’s side, but as he picked up the spoon she walked to the door, still without speaking. He had spoken more with her than he had to anyone since leaving York. Though he avoided company if possible he couldn’t face another evening feeling homesick for Brittany and lonely.
‘Wait!’
She twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Gui. Her spine curved in a sinuous line from neck to waist, emphasising her slender figure.
‘You could keep me company while I eat.’
Her eyes shifted to the sheathed sword that Gui had left propped against the second stool when he had removed it. Stung by her obvious wariness he reached across and slung it on to the bed at the far wall.
‘You’re perfectly safe with me. I’ve been travelling alone for days and would appreciate some company.’
She turned to face him, halfway between the door and the table with her hands folded before her.
‘I didn’t realise this was a silent order.’
‘It isn’t.’
She blurted the words so quickly Gui half-thought he had imagined them. She lapsed into silence immediately, looking as surprised as Gui felt that she had spoken at all.
Gui beckoned her to the table and pushed the free stool out with his toe. She slid on to it, perching on the edge and looking as if she would fly away at any moment. Her head was bent, but Gui could see her eyes were fixed on his hands as they moved from the bowl to his mouth and back.
A normal man—one graced with manners and the noble heritage Gui was pretending to possess—would have removed his gloves to eat. Gui’s left glove was sturdy enough that he could hold the bowl steady so he did not have the embarrassment of seeing it sliding across the table, but being watched with such scrutiny emphasised the self-consciousness that had plagued him since his hand had been taken. He had no intention of revealing his deformity to the truculent girl who seemed so lacking in the art of hospitality. Let her wonder at his lack of manners.
Her lips twitched and she curled them inwards, biting the bottom one at the left side in almost the exact place where Gui’s own lips had split and been forced crookedly back together. Gui folded his arms across his chest. He leaned back against the wall. The girl continued to stare at the bowl. Presumably anything was better than looking at Gui’s ruined face. He regretted now having asked her to stay. Solitude was better than silence and an unwilling companion.
‘Why won’t you talk to me? Did your soaking earlier cause you to lose your voice?’
She dragged her eyes away from his hands to finally meet his eyes. At least she was no longer glaring.
‘We’ve all been told not to speak to you.’
‘You’re speaking to me now,’ Gui pointed out triumphantly.
She gave him an evil look, furious at being tricked.
‘Only because to not answer your questions would be rude. I wouldn’t do otherwise. I won’t do again.’
‘You heard me tell your prioress why I’m here.’
She nodded.
‘Aren’t you curious which of your companions I’m looking for? I suppose there is no way I can persuade you to help me identify the woman I am here for.’
She scowled. ‘Why would I help you take a woman forcibly from her home?’
‘I will find out anyway.’
‘You’ll do it without my help.’
Gui smiled. ‘Do you know where I had travelled from when we met each other?’
Another shake of the head.
‘I came from York.’
The girl drew a sharp breath. His words were significant to her. She knew the woman who came from there. She quickly rearranged the bowl and goblet on the table, eyes firmly on what she was doing. Gui gave a curt laugh, devoid of humour, and settled back on the stool, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.
‘Did you volunteer to serve me or were you sent?’
‘I was sent,’ she admitted cautiously. ‘Why?’
‘I thought you might have been coming here to thank me for not revealing how we met. Is that why you came?’
‘No, I did not!’
He licked his lips and grinned.
‘Do many of the women here spend their time dancing around in fields and singing to themselves? It seems out of keeping with the devoutness of your choice of life.’
The girl paled and muttered something beneath her breath. Gui couldn’t be certain, but thought he heard the word choice.
‘I wonder if this frostbitten welcome is because of who I am,’ he pondered aloud, ‘or whether the same would be extended to any man who dared enter this female sanctuary.’
‘Sanctuary!’
The word exploded from the girl with the violence of an arrow loosed from a bow. She pushed herself from the stool, knocking it over in the process, and spun away from the table. She faced the slit of window, eyes turned towards it. The window was large enough to admit light into the cell, but high enough to prevent the occupant viewing the world beyond. Her hands were by her side as she craned her neck, her fingers curling and uncurling at her skirts.
She wore the same shapeless grey garment she had removed by the river that hid the figure Gui had so recently been enjoying remembering. The veil she wore masked her hair and acted as a frame for a pair of angular cheekbones and a shapely jaw, but was not as heavy or austere as that worn by the prioress or the nuns who had attended her. Her clothes were plain, but not the habit of a nun or sister so she had not yet taken holy orders, if she ever intended to. He imagined sliding his hand slowly beneath the unsightly garment, running his fingertips lightly up her slender body and easing it off her until she was clad only in the clinging shift she had worn in the river. He reeled. Blinked away the vision that had struck him so unexpectedly.
Careful to make no sound that might disturb her, but desperate to draw closer, Gui pushed himself from the stool and stood beside her. She flinched, shoulders tensing as she became aware of his presence, but did not shy away. Gui followed her gaze. He was taller than she, but even he was barely able to make out the courtyard beyond the window and nothing beyond the high wall.
He remembered the joy that had filled her voice as she sang and the carefree way she had danced along the riverbank. He stepped a little closer, turning so that he was standing opposite her. She faced him with the same obstinate manner that had been apparent when she had squared up to him in the river.
‘If this is a sanctuary, it is from men like you,’ the girl snarled. ‘Normans who brutalised the countryside at your King’s orders!’
Gui sighed. ‘I told you before, I come from Brittany, further to the south and indescribably more beautiful than the flat north coast that our King hails from.’
‘It’s all the same to me,’ she snapped. ‘Men are the same wherever they are from and who can tell the difference between men from whichever part of France when they are raping and slaughtering the English?’
‘I’ve never raped!’ Gui whipped back. Slaughter in battle he would admit to, but he had never been guilty of defilement.
‘I felt your—your body! In the river when you dragged me under the water.’
Despite his outrage at what amounted to an accusation of attempted violation, Gui felt a flicker of amusement. She was truly innocent if she thought that the slight swelling that had brushed against her was the sign of a man’s arousal! If the water hadn’t been so cold she’d have had a lot more to remark on. That was one part of his body he felt no shame over, at least. He was not going to let her barefaced slander go unchallenged, however.
‘What I was doing was bathing, as I’ve told you before, and I didn’t drag you under to grope you. Besides, what you felt was a natural response. Don’t flatter yourself that it has anything to do with your charms, child.’ He was lying. He’d dwelled on her charms enough since the glimpse of what she possessed. He hoped she couldn’t see that in his eyes.
‘I’m not a child. I’m almost twenty.’ She sounded indignant. ‘If I told them what you were doing when we met, do you think you would be allowed to stay here?’
Gui exhaled loudly. Remembering the desperation in her eyes when she had feared he might reveal where she had been, he knew it was an empty threat. He hardened his voice as he towered over her. Her eyes widened, but she did not step away.
‘Shall we go together and find the prioress? Tell her you were accosted by a naked man—Breton or Norman—as you were fishing dressed only in your shift and see what difference it would make. The outcome would be the same for you, I imagine.’
They watched each other, eyes locked in challenge. They were standing closer than they had been in the river. Much closer. He could smell the slight scent of lavender, which made him want to bury his face in the soft spot behind her ear to see if she was the source of it. The room seemed to grow hotter as the intensity of her gaze held him fast.
‘What would happen to you if I told the prioress?’ Gui asked. ‘You really didn’t want me to admit to having met you, did you? I think you weren’t supposed to be there.’
It was not a threat, but her eyelids flickered. Long and pale, her lashes framed those almost colourless eyes of watery blue. He remembered how he had considered she might be a simpleton when he first saw her, but her eyes blazed with a fierce intelligence that made him draw a sharp breath. She licked her lips nervously. They were wide and soft, made for kissing. He’d bedded women since coming to England, but he never kissed them, too conscious of his scarred lip. He wanted to kiss this sprite more than he’d wanted anything for a long time. Perhaps he should do it and risk the consequences. Let Gilbert return and find his bride for himself.
‘If you kiss me now, I won’t tell anyone how we met,’ he said daringly.
‘Why would I do that?’
Gui was pleased to note it was surprise rather than disgust that sang in her voice.
‘So you can say you kissed a dweorgar and lived to tell the tale.’
She covered her mouth to hide a smile, then quick as lightning lifted on to her tiptoes, put her hands on his shoulders and pecked at his cheek. He turned his head and their lips met. It did not last more than a couple of heartbeats, but their mouths melded together, her warm lips moving in unison with Gui’s and slightly parting with an eagerness that hinted at the promise of what she could offer. He sighed with longing when she broke away.