By Possession (38 page)

She did not know how much he needed her. If he could find the words to explain it he would try to, but what existed inside him did not have names that he knew. The whole time he had ridden with Lancaster's army he had felt a man apart, watching a dream unfold. His body knew the right moves, his voice said the right words, but his soul felt that by some magic it had been placed in the wrong body. The sense of being a foreigner in his homeland had eased over the months while he was with her. Riding at
the head of an army, being addressed as the Lord of Barrowburgh, being apart from her, had made it surge again. Time had not brought the familiarity he had thought. That had become clear when he left this house and city and her.

The worst part was that his soul knew not in which body it really belonged. Not Addis the slave, although the spirits still lived for him. Not the son of Patrick de Valence, even though custom and honor dictated his decisions.

Only with Moira did he possess any secure sense of who he was, and then because his image reflected off her love. He even accepted his duty mostly because she expected it of him, even if success in regaining his honor meant losing her. The two halves did not totally forge into one when he was with her, but the division ceased to matter much at all.

Losing her. His essence rebelled against the expectation of that. It would be like being flayed. He held her face with his hands and tried to peer through those clear eyes into her soul and discover if she truly would find the strength to leave when the time came. He saw only the pure love of a serf-born woman who had been taught by life to expect nothing.

The open way she looked back touched him as it had so often since he entered her cottage at Darwendon. A provocative nameless something nudged at him, as if a friendship older than these past months and a connection deeper than even this love and pleasure bound them. It unsettled him now, poking persistently.

He kissed her with a passion and possession that had nothing to do with desire, then moved aside and, as he almost always did, laid his head on her breast.

He could not let her go, of course. When the time
came, he would find a way to keep her. When she was nearby he lived in a different world. Everything changed. The earth, the rocks, every plant …

Her firm arms embraced his shoulders in that comforting habit of hers. His face pressed against the softness of her full breast.
I feel like the earth, the rocks every plant has changed.
Her words, whispered that night after they first made love, confusing him because they sounded so familiar.

His mind stretched for something lost behind fog. He noted again this frequent embrace.

She held him the way one might hold a child.

Or a person who mourned.

Or someone broken by pain or despair.

CHAPTER 20

T
HIS IS NOT
going to work.”

“It appears not. The cot is too small.”

“It is not the bed, Addis. Even on the ground …” She began to giggle. “Where do you get these notions?”

“In my dreams.” He laughed, untangling the confusion of limbs he had created. It took some doing.

She stretched and embraced him over her body and heart. She enjoyed his playful experiments, but in truth they both took a special pleasure in this simplest form of lovemaking.

He settled himself, filling her. Spring's earliest smells seeped into the tent with dawn's first light. “I saw the abbot speaking with you yesterday. Did he scold you again?”

“A very mild scold. Since your army camps on his lands he feels obligated to do his duty to condemn sin. He saves the worst for the camp whores, but even then his heart is not in it.”

The profound contentment of being inside her suffused
him as it always did, and he resisted the urge to move. “He wants to be rid of Simon as a neighbor badly enough to overlook much, I'll warrant. He did not argue when I brought the letter from Stratford ordering the abbey to let me use their lands.”

She ran a finger up his back, making him suck air through his teeth. “It was fortunate the bishop chose to help you.”

“Not just good fortune, Moira.”

“How so?”

Hunger conquered his patience. “I will explain some other time.”

Later she walked with him through the damp field and crisp air to the top of the hill where six sentries waited. They had caught one of Simon's men last night. Spies from Barrowburgh fanned out through the region daily to try and locate the army that Simon knew must be coming. So far none of the men who had found the camp had been permitted to return and Simon did not know that fate literally waited on his threshold.

Addis sent the prisoner to the abbey's dungeon after questioning, then turned and looked out over the encampment.

“It is impressive,” Moira said, scanning the tents and fires stretching into the distance. He embraced her and she nestled her back against his chest and snuggled under his surrounding cloak. Together they watched the bright blur of the rising sun burn away the low mist.

“Impressive, but not decisively so.”

“Still not enough? Even with the queen's footmen?”

“Barrowburgh is formidable. Wake should arrive soon but even with the army he brings and the archers sent by Lancaster nothing is certain.”

“The aid of so many is an honor to your family.”

“In part. But like Stratford's help, it is also to repay me and also, mostly, a bid for my support should I succeed. Already the powers in the realm realign and new factions form. It will be thus until young Edward can wear the crown on his own.”

“So even with one king gone and another crowned, nothing has changed.” She shook her head. “I felt sorry for them both, the father facing the end and the boy facing the unknown.”

She felt sorry because she had seen them both. He had brought her with him when he was chosen to join the entourage that traveled to Kenilworth to press for abdication. Not only nobles had faced Edward that day, but representatives of the entire realm. Priests and monks, peasants and merchants, magnates and craftsmen had urged their isolated king to step aside for his son. Edward had fortunately agreed, but Moira had not been the only one to weep at the sight of a man destroyed because fate had condemned him to be born to a life for which he was not suited.

“The boy faces the unknown, but I think he has the heart for it,” Addis said.

“Aye. Only five and ten, but one can see it. I saw him watching his mother and Roger Mortimer and the way they assumed the crown was theirs even though he wore it. He did not seem to miss much.”

Nor did Moira. He had brought her to the coronation too, dressed in his mother's velvets and looking as much a lady in grace and demeanor as any lord's wife. She had not wanted to go, but once there the excitement of attending such a great event had obliterated any awkwardness. An accident of birth, Rhys had called a person's status, and it had never been more true than in that great hall or been proven more clearly than by the events of the last weeks.

“He is cut of the same cloth as his grandfather. Soon he will come of age to rule on his own. Until then the queen and her lover will have a council to deal with.”

“I do not think they will listen to the council,” she said.

“Nor do I. Nor does our new king. He spoke with me and some others. He found a way to pass a few words privately.”

She turned in surprise. “You never told me that before.”

“He said very little. It was more his expression and tone. In fact he began by admiring your form. He may only be five and ten but he has an appreciation for a pretty armful of woman when he meets one.”

She laughed and jostled him with her elbow. “Seriously, what did he say?”

“That my lady appears to have the most magnificent breasts that ever a man—”

“Addis!”

“I swear that I quote him directly. And then he looked at his little Philippa and said that Mortimer had reassured him that although she did not come from a great house and was not a beauty that her broad hips meant she would be fertile. He smiled like an old man and added that Mortimer had misjudged the true value of the count's daughter, which would lie in her loyalty and love, and that his wife would be his first and most formidable ally. And then, having just mentioned allies, he asked how my preparations progressed for Barrowburgh, and offered to ask his mother to provide aid.”

She peered toward the tents that flew the royal colors. “You mean it was young Edward and not the queen …”

“It was the queen, but at his suggestion. I doubt she knows he mentioned it to me. So she thinks she has bought my loyalty when in fact I know the true source.”

He led her down the hill and through the awakening
camp. They stood by the fire outside their tent and he wrapped her under his cloak again. She felt so good and right next to him. He wondered if she had experienced the same bittersweet mood when they made love this morning. Soon this army would move. They never spoke of the parting which she still assumed would occur when Barrowburgh fell, but it was never far from his mind. He had greeted the arrival of every man with a combination of relief and resentment.

A horse suddenly clamored through the quiet morning. A sentry pulled up beside them and pointed south. “A troop. Maybe a mile away. Seems to have circled around from the west.”

That would be Wake. “How many?”

“Maybe fifty to seventy.”

Addis frowned. Thomas was supposed to bring two hundred at least. Wake had not liked Moira's visibility during the last few weeks in London, but had let Addis know that he understood. Still, although marriage alliances were practical arrangements and many men retained mistresses, Wake might have rethought everything if he concluded that Addis's devotion appeared too strong.

If so, why bother coming at all? Nay, more likely he had split his men so they would attract less attention. Part of him felt disappointed with this obvious explanation. He needed Wake, but if the man himself retreated from the agreement …

He gestured for the sentry's horse and the part that secretly wished that would happen and damn the consequences drew Moira toward it.

She resisted. “I will wait in the tent.”

“You will come. He knows about us already. He will be in this camp for several days before we move and I will not have you hiding.” He mounted and pulled her up behind.

“You are a fool to make such a statement through my presence behind you,” she hissed into his back.

Perhaps. But during the time left he'd be damned if he would deny her, or let discretion create any separation, or treat her as less than she was to him.

They trotted through the camp and he waited at the southern edge. The arriving troop broke into view at the crest of a low rise of land. The leader saw them and galloped ahead.

Long blond hair flew back from the rider's head. He slowed when he neared, and paced until he sat along Addis's side. Blue eyes scanned, pausing on Moira, and several heartbeats of utter stillness passed.

Raymond smiled and threw his arm back toward the approaching men. “Could only raise sixty, what with it being near planting time, but at least these men are seasoned in battle. You might consider waging your next war during the growing months like everyone else, brother.”

Addis had not missed the reaction contained in that encompassing look. No longer angry, but not approving either. He reached out his arm and Raymond did the same, joining in a clasp of friendship. “I am grateful that you have come.”

“Couldn't pass up the chance to see that snake get skinned. Too sly by half. Never liked him, even as a youth, and dreaded whenever we found ourselves at your father's board together. Besides, we both know Bernard would leave his grave to haunt me if our family did not do its duty by yours.”

“It is good to see you again, Raymond,” Moira said as they turned to ride back to the camp.

“And you. Love makes your eyes even brighter, Moira. I can see this knight suits you.”

It was said with a forced joviality but it broke the awkwardness just the same.

“Aye, he suits me well,” she said, laughing.

At the tent Moira made an excuse to leave. Raymond watched her walk away. “You must suit her very well if she lets you give her velvet gowns. She would take nothing from me.”

“They are my mother's things.”

“Do not get annoyed. I am not suggesting that you have bought her. If a few gowns were all it took with her … She is a proud woman, is all. It must be a true love if she puts that pride aside.”

She
had
put her pride aside. She walked through this camp as if living with a man who was not her husband carried no shame at all for her. Somehow she had decided that this brief time and particular place existed outside the normal world and its rules. He was the one who resented the occasional looks of disapproval sent her way, and the abbot's penitential warnings.

“I did not think that you would come because of it.”

Raymond shrugged. “She always said that she thought of me as a brother. If those aren't the most dispiriting words women have ever spoken to men, I don't know what are. And I suspected that she had sworn never to be like her mother. But if she has changed on that with you, I have decided that perhaps it is for the best. Lady Mathilda will naturally prefer her own children when they come. It will be good for Brian to have Moira's love in your home.”