Enduringly Yours (2 page)

Chapter Two

Peter swung off his stallion and tethered him to a fallen hazel tree. The palomino war horse arched his neck around to nuzzle him companionably.

“We will head home soon, Evrin,” he told the horse, patting his neck with one hand and wiping horse slobber off his cheek with the other. “There’s something I need to do first.” The stallion tossed his head, pawing the ground as Peter walked off.  

He crunched his way through tangled roots and low-hanging branches, finally emerging onto a narrow beach overlooking a lake. This place marked the boundary line between Ravenmore and Havendell. His father and Zipporah’s had both earned their land through knightly service to the king. They were close friends and had received adjoining estates. Peter and his brother John had grown up with Zipporah and her brother Edward. At times, Peter and John had been trained by Zipporah’s father, just as his father had helped teach Edward how to fight and ride.

Peter used to get Zipporah into so much trouble, sneaking her out of the castle to fish at the lake, or to wander the forest like feral children. Her father finally had a guard posted to keep her from escaping. That didn’t stop them. They found ways.

As they got older, Peter started climbing the trellis to Zipporah’s window. One night he stayed until dawn.

He’d never been with a woman before. Somehow he managed to blunder his way through lovemaking with this perfect girl, who didn’t seem to mind at all his lack of skill.

He was addicted after that. She was reluctant to invite him back into her bed though, for fear of being found out. But he kept coming, like a mangy dog looking for a hot meal. Eventually she gave in, and he found himself sleeping in her chamber more often than not.

Then he left on Crusade with John and Edward. He should have spent his last night with Zipporah, but he’d spent it with the other lads instead, drinking and boasting about what heroes they would become.

He’d never said goodbye.

Peter leaned back against a lumpy willow tree, his gaze fixed on the rippled, earth-brown water. A breeze worked the edges of his flaxen tunic. He let the steady rhythm of the waves numb his mind. This was what he needed. To numb himself.

Pity it was only temporary.

A twig popped in the thicket behind him. Peter slid back behind the tree. After three years of war it was hard not to be paranoid. His hand came to the familiar leather-wrapped hilt of his long sword.

And a moment later
she
appeared.

Peter was shocked into stillness. After several breaths he found the wherewithal to smile. He was pretty sure it was a stupid smile, but it couldn’t be helped. Zipporah did that to him. His hand moved away from his sword.

Her skirts whipped around her legs, forming against her curves, teasing him. Being separated from her was an acute kind of torture. Like being at sea during a dry spell, when all the rain barrels are empty and there’s nothing to drink, even though you’re surrounded by water.

She bent to pick up a stone and threw it in the lake.
Move, you idiot
, he told himself.
Let her know you’re here.

Peter leaned back against the willow again, waiting for the right moment. Or maybe what he was really doing was waiting for the right words to come to mind. 

He waited some more.

Nay, no epiphanies.

She would just have to bear him as he was then.

Zipporah tucked her skirts under her and sat on the bank with her knees against her chest and her arms around her legs. Peter sounded a bird call. A turtledove. She tightened her grip around her legs. He called again. Her shoulders moved. He repeated it a third time.

Zipporah turned her head to look over her shoulder. She gasped and rose to her feet. Her hand went to the jeweled dagger on her belt.

“’Tis me,” he said, coming out from under wispy willow branches.

She kept her hand right where it was.

“Do you really need that?”

She sighed and lowered her hand. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same.”

“I wanted to be alone.”

“As did I.”

“We are not alone.”

“Nay.” He smiled. “We are not.”

“Do not smile like that. What little charm you ever had, and I mean
little
, no longer has any effect on me.”

She was right about one thing. He’d never had much charm. But there was a time when she’d tolerated him anyway.

“I wasn’t trying to charm you. I’ve been . . . wanting to tell you that I’m sorry about Edward.” That wasn’t quite what he’d meant to say, but it would do.

She walked along the bank. “’Tis not as if it was your fault. You did not force him to go to war.”

He followed her.

“Why did you have to come back?” she said. “I was doing better without you.”

That stung. “This is my home too. Would you rather I had died?”

She stopped, turning slowly to face him. Her gaze worked upward, flicked over his face, then focused on the lake instead of him. “What was it like?”

“Crusading?”

“Aye.”

“I’m not sure I should tell you.”

“My brother died because of it.”

She did have a right to know, whether he was comfortable telling her or not. “Sand,” he said. “Sand and hot sun. When the sun rises, the sand shines like jewels.” He spread out his hand. “Then everything heats as if you were in a giant furnace. A man’s eyes burn and he has to shield them just to see where he is going.”

She pulled her braid over her shoulder, twisting the end of it. “Tell me more.”

He hesitated, then once the words came, he feared they would not stop. “Nights so cold a man would freeze without a fire. The snakes seek after your body heat and you wake up with them curled at your side. Saracen blood . . . English blood . . . French blood.”

“And my brother.”

“Aye, your brother.”

“How did he die? The messenger could not tell us.”

“He died well.”

“How?” Her blue eyes, so much like Edward’s, begged for honesty.

“In battle, like many others,” he confessed, looking away from those eyes. “I saw it. I called out to him and I tried to get to him in time, but I was too late.” Peter felt as if he were caught between sparing her and the need to release himself. How fitting, he realized. “Edward died in my arms, his life’s-blood spilt upon the sand. It was on my hands.” He looked at his fingers. “My brother and I buried him in the sand.”  

Peter swallowed, his throat tight. When he looked at Zipporah, he saw silent tears streaking down her face. He touched her arm, expecting her to pull away. She surprised him by turning into his shoulder instead.

“I want him back,” she said. 

It took him a baffled moment to respond, then he drew her closer, rubbing her back. “As do I.” 

Her fingers clenched into the front of his tunic. Her shoulders were shaking, and he could tell she was trying not to make any noise as she cried.

“My father is dying,” she said, sniffing into his sleeve. “And my mother has suffered too much as it is.” Zipporah lifted her head.

So close . . . her face. All he would have to do was duck his head. She wavered there, her eyes heavy-lidded and her trembling body practically begging him to kiss her. Her shoulders heaved in a shuddered breath, and then she pulled away.

“You feel different,” she said, rubbing her arms. “Harder.”

“What?”

“You’re chest. It feels hard.”

“Irregular meals and heavy labor.”

“Your sword hand is scarred now.”

She’d noticed. “Aye.”

“Does the scar spread up your arm?”

He looked at it, mostly covered by his sleeve. “Superficial, but aye, up my forearm.”

“What else is there?”

“And here you wanted me to think you’d been ignoring me for a fortnight.”

“Do not flatter yourself. I saw you almost every day, whether I wanted to or not. How close did you come to joining Edward?”

“We all came close. John took an arrow in his left shoulder. We were glad it wasn’t his heart.”

“And you?”

“All superficial.”

Her brows arched as if she did not believe him. He wanted to ask her if she’d like to examine him herself. It took him a moment to tuck the fantasy away. It would come back later, he was sure. Probably in his sleep when there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He cleared his throat. “Jammed the fingers on my left hand, broke all of them. Healed up, eventually. They still hurt sometimes.” He flexed them. “Woke up next to a snake once. John cut off its head. We ate it.”

Her nose scrunched.

“All in all, I was one of the fortunate few. Anything else you wanted to know, my lady?”

She eyed him.

“I thought about you.”

She picked up a stone and threw it into the water, effectively avoiding him. “I have some decisions to make. With my father incapacitated, I need to make them soon.”

Was she was referring to whom she would marry? That she felt the need to weigh possible suitors cut. “I will be at Havendell as often as possible,” he told her. “You can always send for me at any time.”

“Peter do not start this.”

“I will not let Gilburn hurt you.”

She twisted the end of her braid. “I am not your responsibility.”

“To hell you’re not.”

She jerked.

“The day you are not my responsibility is the day I am laid out in a grave.”

The blood drained from her face.

“This is no game.” He softened his voice. “Gilburn is not the sort of man you should be playing games with anyway.”

She made her way back into the woods, undergrowth snapping under the weight of her determination. Peter followed. Wrenching her skirts out of the way, and flashing more leg than she’d probably intended, she mounted her white gelding. Zipporah reined the horse around to face him, metal on the bridle clanking. “Do not follow me. Sir Gilburn’s men are vigilant. We cannot be seen alone together.”

“Wait.” He took a hold of the reins.

“There is nothing more to say.”

“I just want to know one thing.”

“What?”

“Why
did
you come here?”

“I told you. To be alone.”

“But why
here
?”

They used to fish at that very spot, which was why he had gone there in the first place.

“You did not go to the clearing, did you?” she asked.

He looked over his shoulder. They had shared their first kiss in a clearing not far from there. Just what was she suggesting? That he was in the habit of bringing other women there?

He looked at her again. “I have been home for a fortnight and you think I came here for a dalliance?”

“You did not answer my question.”

“And neither did you answer mine.”

“Promise me that you will not go there. Swear to it by your knighthood.”

“Zipporah.”

“Swear it!”

His tongue felt like lead. “I swear.”

Peter let her horse free and she rode away. He watched her for a moment, then decided not to leave her unguarded. He needed to make sure she made it back safely.

Peter did not trust Gilburn. He had trained with him, and competed against him at the Mêlée—a mock battle fray where the only rule was to try and not kill one another. Gilburn did not possess the sort of control necessary for a man in his current position of authority. He was an arrow in a bow, cocked back and ready to fly at any moment. The last thing Peter wanted was for Zipporah to get in the way.

Chapter Three

Zipporah nudged her gelding with her heels, settling him into a steady canter back to the castle.

Why did
he
have to be at the lake? She couldn’t escape him. Peter. To her dismay, he still drew her, but she was wiser now. She knew better than to allow herself be carried away by him—with him.

Didn’t she? Of course she did. She had to.

Peter.

She could kill him. She could . . . She could . . . She wiped her eyes.

Stop it. Stop your foolish tears.

Zipporah slowed her gelding to a walk. She was not ready to go home yet, but she knew she couldn’t stay away too long either, lest Sir Gilburn realize she was missing and come looking for her.

She hugged her gelding’s neck, getting horsehair all over her wet face. Memories crashed over her like waves on the pebbled lake shore. Some were so painful she had to turn away from them. Some were so sweet she never wanted to forget. Even if she had to marry another man, Peter would always be her first.

Did that mean she still had feelings for him?

Well, that was an understatement. When had she not had feelings for him? But she’d trusted him once, in her misguided innocence, and found him to be no more mature—

No more mature than she was.

Was it fair to blame him when she was the one who had willingly let him into her bed? It wasn’t as if he’d forced himself on her. Yet when she’d later decided she was uncomfortable, he had coaxed her on. He may have been an unschooled lad, but he’d made a girl feel like a woman.

Her gelding turned his head and snorted. Zipporah looked over her shoulder. Down the way she’d come stood a single rider. His horse pawed the dirt, anxious to move on. Recognizing Peter’s stallion, she turned the rein to face him fully.

Peter never listened. Never.

With a sigh, she cantered toward him. Peter didn’t move, waiting for her to come to him. She pulled back on the reins, her horse sliding to a stop.

“I could not just leave you like this,” he said.

Well that was a change. He had left her so willingly before, his seed rooting within her. Not that he’d known about the baby. She had not even known yet.

“I asked you not to follow,” she said. “I am trying to protect you.”

His brows arched. “Protect me?”

Zipporah looked him over, taking note of the way his sandy hair hung past his shoulders, longer than he used to wear it. Peter’s face was tanned to a deep gold. His green eyes reflected the experiences he’d gained at war.

“Like it or not, you are vulnerable,” he said. “I do not trust Gilburn.”

Neither did she, but she wasn’t going to say anything that might further encourage Peter. Zipporah rubbed the leather reins between her fingers. “My father trusts him.”

“Your father, pardon me, is blinded by the boy he raised himself.” Peter’s stallion danced to one side and he reined the animal back in.

Gilburn had come to her father as an orphan. Gilburn’s sire, a knight, had been killed in the line of duty, and his mother in the fire that destroyed his home.

“I know how to deal with Gilburn,” she said, trying not to wince.

A lock of hair fell over Peter’s forehead. A glint of sun dappling through branches of alder and yew, tinted it to gold. She had the insane urge to brush it back for him. Did his hair feel just like it had before? He shook it out of his face.

“I have gained a good deal of common sense over the last three years,” she told him.

“You have always had it.” The sudden husky tenor in his voice stirred her inside.

She cleared her throat. “My life is not what it was before. It all falls on me now. My mother’s wellbeing. My future.” She spoke more quietly. “If anyone found out about us, I could lose everything.”

Never mind the stretch marks on her stomach. Zipporah winced, hoping Peter didn’t notice.

He urged his horse closer to hers. “No one will ever know. You had my word before, and you still have it now.”

She nodded, twisting the reins in her fingers. “The land will go to Gilburn. My father told him so. Gilburn is loyal to Prince John, and now he has his approval as well.”

“But not King Richard’s.”

“What difference does it make? The king will not help me. No offense, but all he cares about is his holy war.”

Peter hesitated before answering. “I wouldn’t give up hope just yet.”

“I never thought it would come to this. I knew there was a chance Edward wouldn’t return, but I never . . .”

“Do you still have my letter?”

“Aye.”

“Did you burn it?”

“Nay. I have not had the chance.”

“We should not risk Gilburn seeing it.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What does it say?”

“It alludes. But considering how Gilburn feels about you, and all the power he holds, it could put you in a dangerous position.”

“Could you not have said that before?”

“Sorry,” he drawled.

She felt for the piece of parchment tucked into her belt, pulled it out, and then put it into her coin pouch instead. “Better?” she asked, tightening the rawhide drawstring.

“Somewhat.” He stared her down until she acquiesced.

“Aye,” she said. “I will read it, and then directly burn it.”

“Thank you.”

Was his voice deeper than it had been three years ago? Nay, not deeper, but it was a little hoarse. From yelling on the battlefield? A shiver etched down her spine. She could feel his gaze on her. She was hyperaware of it.

“I am leaving now,” she managed.

“I will remain hidden from sight, but I will follow you home.”

“What if Sir Gilburn sees you?”

Peter winked, reminding her of the lad who had stolen into her bedchamber, taking more than her virtue away with him. “He will not.”

She pulled herself together, shrugging as if she didn’t care if he were caught, even though she did. A lot. Too much. “It is your life, if you should wish to lose it foolishly, who am I to stop you. I am leaving now.”

He ducked his head, smiling lazily. “Fare thee well, my lady.”

Zipporah rolled her eyes, then turned her gelding and galloped down the road, not slowing until she’d passed through the castle gates and into the stable yard. She gave the reins a little tug when her horse reached for a swipe of hay off a freshly pitched pile. Leaving him with a stable boy, she fingered through her braid and plaited it again to make it look like she had not been out riding. It would take too long to work the ribbons back around her hair, so she tucked them under some straw in her horse’s stall and left them behind.

She’d just stepped out of the stable when she saw Gilburn leaning against a fencepost with his arms crossed over his chest, watching her. Caught off guard, she froze, and then forced herself to act naturally.

“You,” he said, like one might to a disobedient child, “have been out riding.”

“Only a little.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“You were occupied. I did not wish to disturb you.”

“I cannot keep you safe when I do not know where you are.” He pushed away from the fence, his face softening. “If you need to get away from the castle I can understand, but please tell me first. If I cannot escort you personally, then I will assign someone.”

“Aye, of course.”

“I am not too busy for you,” he said. “If you ever need anything I will be there. No request is too trivial.”

“I understand. Of course.” She smiled for good measure.

Gilburn walked her up the stone steps at the front of the castle keep, then stopped and took her hands in his. “I will see you at supper. I am looking forward to it.”

He bowed his dark head, then turned back down the stairs. Zipporah let out her breath, glad he hadn’t questioned her further. All this attention was disturbing her. He’d always been intense, but this was too much. 

* * *

Zipporah remained in her chamber for the rest of the day, coming out only for supper. Even then, she walked into the great hall with all the zeal of a woman with a warrant out for her arrest. Her mother was in her usual place at the high table, Sir Gilburn across from her. He smiled as if pleased with his day’s accomplishments.

Zipporah forced herself to keep her emotions off her face as she made her way up the steps of the dais. Gilburn stood so that she could slide onto the bench at the trestle table. With a nod of his head, he sat back down next to her.

Why did she agree to share a trencher with the man?

Oh aye, she hadn’t. He’d taken it upon himself to accept his own offer for her.

“Sir Gilburn,” she said in greeting.

“My lady.” His gaze found hers. He smelled like cloves. Had he bathed?

She glanced at Lady Havendell, wishing she had told her mother earlier that Gilburn had taken on the role of a suitor. “How is Father?” she asked.

“He was awake for a short time this afternoon,” her mother said.

“I am sorry I missed it.”

“He wasn’t himself anyway.”

He never was. Not anymore.

They were served their meal by a maidservant. Zipporah watched the young woman move around the table, her hips swaying beneath coarse green wool. She tucked an auburn curl behind her ear and smiled at Gilburn. He glanced at her with disinterest, then turned away. The maid’s face withered. Zipporah wondered if she and Gilburn had engaged in a recent kitchen dalliance.

Her mother, engaged in washing her hands in the laver of rosewater, smiled wryly at Zipporah from across the table.

“Are you not hungry?” Gilburn asked Zipporah.

“Of course I am.” Actually, she wasn’t. She was too distracted by unwelcome suitors. Zipporah dipped into her onion soup anyway.

“I was probably too harsh on you earlier,” he said.

She took a sip from her wooden spoon.

“I am not trying to take your freedom away from you.”

She forced herself to smile. “I understand completely. I should finish my meal so that I can go sit with my father.” Zipporah broke her bread and soaked it in her soup.

“I shall accompany you.”

Her mother cleared her throat. “Zipporah would like to have some time alone with him.”

“Of course she would.” Gilburn reached across the table and filled the metal goblet she would be sharing with him. He passed it to her and she drank until she was out of breath.

He eyed the cup, and then her.

“I am thirsty,” she said.

He took it from her and refilled it, then turned to the task of cutting her meat, as was customary when sharing a meal with a woman. Zipporah ate with large bites. The faster she finished, the sooner she could be away from him. She lifted the goblet and drank again.

“I had hoped to spend some time with you this evening,” he said.

“We can always spend time together tomorrow.”

“I would like that. What should we do?”

Zipporah set the goblet aside, wondering if
push you off a cliff
might be the wrong thing to say. “We could go for a ride.”

His brown eyes lit with a feverish gleam.

Oh, no, what had she done?

She shifted on the bench. “Unless you will be otherwise engaged.”              

“Of course not, my lady.”

“You are a very busy man.”

“I would be honored to accompany you on a ride.”

“Perfect,” she said, standing. “I should go now.” Gilburn stood with her, moving aside so she could step around the bench.

“Until tomorrow.” He bowed.

She graced him with a hurried curtsy, then grasped her skirts and left the great hall. Zipporah didn’t stop until she was at her father’s door. She paused with her hand on the iron ring, taking a deep breath. Maybe she should contact Peter and let him know about the ride. But how could she manage it without Gilburn finding out? Her mother’s knight, Sir Mark, could be trusted with such a mission.

Letting out a frustrated breath, she changed her mind. Nay, she wouldn’t ask Peter for help, because that was exactly what he wanted from her.

Zipporah pushed open the door, shut it quietly behind her, then turned to face her father. He was laid out on a four-poster oak bed, his unconscious form nestled in fox pelts, and a patchwork blanket pulled up to his shoulders. The fire in the hearth glistened off the reddish orange of the fox fur around the edges of the blanket and his head. The rise and fall of Lord Havendell’s chest was almost imperceptible. The apple blossoms Peter had cut were in a clay jar on the mantel, their sweet fragrance mellowing the musty stench of illness.

Her father had been moved out of the chamber he normally shared with her mother because of the regular medical care he required. His arm was out from under the blanket, bandaged from his recent bloodletting treatment.