Mary Gillgannon
The Leopard
by
Mary Gillgannon
An earlier version of this book, entitled
Leopard’s Lady
was published in 1995 by Pinnacle Books,
a division of Kensington Publishing Corp
Copyright 1995 by Mary Gillgannon
Digital edition published by Mary Gillgannon, 2013
Copyright 2013 by Mary Gillgannon
Cover Design by
Rae Monet
Digital Design by
A Thirsty Mind
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Once again, to Patrick
T
he sound of feminine laughter came to his ears, peals of girlish delight. He pushed through the lush green growth cautiously, trying not to scratch his hands on the brambles. His breath caught as he spied the two maidens bathing not twenty paces away. They were cavorting and frolicking in a small pool, too shallow to hide their nakedness. His eyes took in dripping hair, smooth skin and two pairs of buoyant breasts. They laughed and shrieked like children, splashing each other playfully.
The nunnery of Stafford was nearby. These lovelies were likely young noblewomen who had been sent to the convent for schooling and protection. The tingling desire in his groin deepened almost unbearably. Unlike the whores and serving wenches who usually serviced him, these demoiselles were fresh and innocent, their skin clean and fragrant, their breasts firm, their faces guileless.
With near desperate impatience, his hand gripped the small tree hiding him. If only they would get out so he could truly see them. His companion Will would be along any minute. Unless he approached quietly, the girls would realize they were being watched and make a dash for their clothes. The thought of it made his breath catch again.
“God’s blood,” he whispered. “Hurry up! Get out so I can see you!”
As if she heard him, one of the girls made her way to the edge of the pool and stepped out gracefully. The water dripped from her small upturned breasts and trailed down her long slender body. Her wet hair glistened black and her skin was dusky even in places the sun seldom saw. She walked to her clothing with languorous ease, and he memorized the shape of her pert, muscular bottom, the enticing black triangle of hair between her legs, the berry color of her nipples.
He turned his eyes expectantly back to the water and was not disappointed. A Venus—he thought as the second young woman rose slowly out of the water. His eyes widened as each stunning inch was revealed. Strands of rosy blond hair slid away to reveal skin the shade of buttermilk and ripe pink-tipped breasts shaped to fill a man’s hand. He held his breath as her tiny waist was exposed, then the rounded curve of her hips. His gaze focused on the juncture of her thighs, where the soft shadow of hair the color of strawberries made his mouth water for a taste.
She stepped clear of the water and shook herself, her body undulating provocatively. His mouth went completely dry. She was made to look at. Her small form opulent with the promise of pleasure. The pliant delectable flesh, the flawless blooming skin, the swirl of bright hair—if he had designed the perfect woman himself he could have done no better than this. He was tantalized beyond endurance by the very sight of her.
The other girl had dried herself and begun to dress, but the Venus remained naked, as if enjoying the feel of the sun upon her skin. She fluffed her hair, twirling her fingers through the cascade of dazzling rose-gold tresses. The other girl called teasingly to her, and she turned to answer, affording him a glorious view of her backside. Twin dimples winked at him where her hair met her hips, accenting the most splendidly rounded little bottom he’d ever seen. The cheeks of it were firm and smooth, but so temptingly full they made his fingers ache to cup them.
He was rock hard, and when she sat down at the edge of the pool and stretched out her exquisitely formed legs, he nearly came in his chausses. The only thing that saved him was Will’s harsh whisper in his ear: “King’s knight or not, you could be strung up for spying like this.”
“It would be worth it,” he answered with a low moan. “Sweet Jesu, did you ever see anything like that one. She looks so deliciously pure.”
“She is pure, you fool! She’s probably a nun.”
“God would not be so unjust. A woman like that is meant to be enjoyed.”
Will put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Not by you. You’d best get away while you can. Our excuse that we were pursuing a hind and got lost would sound pretty lame right now.”
“In a minute,” he whispered. “I only want to look at her a while longer. She’s bound to get dressed soon anyway.”
Except she didn’t. She continued to sit on the rock, sunning herself as unconsciously as a child. Every few moments she would shake out her hair or turn to speak to the other girl. The slight movements made her breasts jiggle enticingly. The sweat trickled down his chest.
Beside him, Will sighed. “Stay then. When they hang you, I won’t even remember your name.”
Time seemed to stand still. He was not ten paces away from where she sat, and his eyes drank in every inch of her. He could almost see the pulse beating in her creamy neck, the last few drops of water drying on her sun-warmed skin. Her eyes were blue, clear and pure as the summer sky. Her features were soft and delicate, their childish sweetness contrasting with the lushness of her body.
For a moment he closed his eyes, imagining her ripe, beautiful body opening up to him. Her pink lips moist and parted. Her soft breasts crushed against his chest. Her slender legs spread wide for his shaft.
Something made him open his eyes. She was standing up, staring directly at him, as if she could see him through the hawthorn bush. He froze as she advanced towards him. What should he do? Run? Greet her and tell her how beautiful she was, how much he had enjoyed watching her? He did nothing—just let her walk up to him. When she reached his hiding place, he stepped aside so she could see him.
A scream started in her eyes but never made it to her lips. He smiled at her. She stared back at him. Then she realized she was completely naked and gave a little squeal of terror. He was surprised how fast she ran away. Who would have thought those slender legs could move so quickly? He treasured one last glimpse of her beautiful little bottom bobbing up and down as she ran. Then he turned and walked off into the forest.
England, AD 1248
S
he would never see Stafford again, Astra de Mortain thought ruefully as she turned back for one last look. In the distance, the priory seemed like a holy vision, floating ethereally above the veil of mist shimmering over the green valley. The soft morning light made the stonework gleam golden, and the transept vaults of the small chapel reached toward the sky like the very archways of heaven.
She straightened her spine and turned away. She had made her decision. There was no point indulging in regrets. Despite her resolve, tears leaked from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She wiped them away with impatient fingers.
“Sweet Jesu, you promised you wouldn’t cry!” Marguerite Fitz Hugh exclaimed, guiding her fine white palfrey next to Astra’s mule.
Astra gave her friend an exasperated look. “I’ve spent nearly my whole life at Stafford. It’s only natural that I experience some sorrow at leaving.”
Marguerite made a face. “I can’t imagine why. Do you want to end up a sour-faced, dried-up old biddy like them?”
Astra smiled faintly. It was obvious Marguerite considered taking holy vows a fate worse than death. She could never understand how hard a choice it had been for Astra. Stafford represented security, peace... and love. The sisters had been the only family she’d ever known. If she had not discovered how ill-suited she was to the holy life, she would never have left.
And Marguerite was very much to blame for that discovery, Astra thought wryly. If Marguerite had not come to Stafford and shown her a glimpse of the world outside the priory—and a frightening insight into her own sinful nature—she would never have had the courage to forsake the cloistered life. The truth was, she was unfit to be a bride of Christ, and she would not be a hypocrite. If she could not keep to her vows, she would not take them.
The mule she was riding stumbled slightly, and Astra struggled to right herself. The animal quickly resumed its plodding pace, but Astra’s stomach did not recover so easily. She had only to think about what was ahead of her, and her insides twisted in foreboding. She had no preparation for the secular life, and the nuns had filled her mind with stories about the violence and evil that awaited her outside the priory. If it had not been for Marguerite’s assurances that she would take care of Astra and help her realize her dream of a husband and a family of her own, Astra would never have dared to leave.
She glanced fondly at her friend, who had urged her horse ahead and was conversing with one of the knights escorting them. A charming smile graced Marguerite’s lips, and her manner was blatantly flirtatious. Astra shook her head. Marguerite was everything she was not—tall, elegant, assured. She sat a horse as if she had been born to it, and her gestures were as dramatic and graceful as Astra imagined a queen’s would be. Next to her, Astra felt hopelessly awkward and gauche.
Perhaps Marguerite also had that effect upon the knight she was now flirting with, for as Astra watched, the man leaned away from Marguerite and spurred his destrier forward. Marguerite laughed teasingly after him, then let her mount slow until she was beside Astra.
“What wooden-headed dolts my father has for knights,” she complained. Then she glanced at Astra, and her amused look turned to concern. “Still brooding, sweeting? Please don’t fret. You’ll soon see that things have turned out for the best. We’ll go home to Ravensmore, behave ourselves for a few months, and then, when Papa has grown tired of having us underfoot, we’ll convince him to send us to King Henry’s court.”
A twinge of excitement stirred beneath Astra’s gloom. Marguerite had been to the courts of both the French and English kings. Astra, on the other hand, had never been farther afield than the market at Lichfield—and that in the company of a group of elderly nuns who hovered around her like hens guarding an orphaned chick.
“I’m afraid I would make a fool of myself at court,” she told Marguerite. “I have no idea how to talk to ladies and noblemen.”
“Never fear,” Marguerite announced grandly. “I shall teach you everything you need to know. While we’re at Ravensmore, I shall impart to you all the subtleties of dealing with kings and queens, barons and knights. I’ll also have my mother instruct you in the arts of running a noble household. After you charm some wealthy and gallant knight into making you his wife, you’ll need to know how to manage his demesne.”
Astra shook her head at Marguerite’s ridiculous plans. Most marriages were contracted for money or land, and she had neither. She was hardly a likely choice for a nobleman’s wife, and even in her dreams, she did not dare to aim so high. When she imagined herself married, it was to a modestly successful clerk or an older merchant. With the skills in writing and sums she had learned at Stafford, she knew she could be an asset to such a man. Her ability to help her husband with his accounts might be enough to overcome her lack of a proper dowry.
“We’ll begin your education this very day,” Marguerite enthused. “It’s Saturday, and there will undoubtedly be a fair at Tudbury. When we pass by this afternoon, I’ll insist to our escort that we stop and take refreshment. With a tournament scheduled there in a fortnight, there’s certain to be some knights in the area. We’ll make their acquaintance, and you will have your first lesson in conversing with the opposite sex.”
Astra turned and cast one last regretful glance at the distant priory. It was too late to turn back now. Her new life was about to begin.
* * *
“Mother of God, what a smell?” Astra exclaimed as they rode into Tudbury. The combined odors of offal, cooking food, sweat and perfume exuding from the town fair were already ripening in the summer heat.
Marguerite gave a peal of laughter before responding in her husky, heavily-accented voice. “That,
ma petite
, is the smell of adventure!”
Astra nodded, a shiver coursing down her body in response to her friend’s tantalizing words. This was why she had left the priory. She wanted to see a fair, to buy something useless and extravagant, to rub shoulders with the nobility and the peasants. In truth, an adventure was exactly what she yearned for.
They reached the crossroads outside the town, and the leader of their escort tried to turn them east on the road toward Repton Abbey. The old knight, Sir Thomas de Chilham, was reluctant to see his young charges exposed to the base merrymaking of a town festival. Only by arguing strenuously did Marguerite manage to convince him that she was near faint with hunger and could not endure waiting a moment longer to eat.
The booths and pavilions of the fair were spread out on a green meadow dotted with poppies and cornflowers. The flowers were now mostly trampled, the field strewn with refuse. As they approached, the odor of cooking food intensified, almost but not quite overpowering other less enticing scents. Astra’s stomach growled noisily, and as soon as one of the men helped her dismount, she hurried with Marguerite to the food booths. The stalls seemed to overflow with food—succulent meat pies, roast fowl, spicy sausages, nuts and sweetmeats, even oranges from Morocco. Marguerite was lavish with her pennies, and Astra’s foremost problem was deciding what to eat next.
“Don’t stuff yourself,” Marguerite warned. “If you aren’t used to rich fare, it’s easy to make yourself wretchedly ill.”
Astra nodded as she took another bite of divinely flavored sausage. The food at Stafford was nothing like this—fish in plain sauces much of the year, salted pork the rest, with a tough stringy chicken or fresh cheese from the nearby monastery as an occasional treat. She licked her lips, savoring the foreign flavors she’d just experienced.
Their hunger satisfied, the two young women set out to explore the merchant booths. Astra’s senses were areel. She’d never seen such beautiful things—bolts of exquisite cloth, cottons from France and Flanders, silks from the East, bright wools from native looms; buttersoft leather boots and shoes from Spain; finely wrought jewelry of silver and gold set with pearls, jet, rubies and lapis lazuli. There were also booths and tents offering more practical things: weapons and armor, farm tools, and ropes.
The people attending the fair were as interesting to Astra as the merchandise. She saw ruddy-faced peasants in wooden clogs and plain brown tunics that hung to their bare, dirty knees. Prosperous townfolk in bright wools of saffron, green and scarlet. Monks with their tonsures and coarse robes and clerics resplendent in samite, velvet and silk. Even a nobleman with a fine embroidered surcote over his armor and an elegant, gold-coiffed lady at his side. Astra took in everything, trying not to stare.
“Now to find some knights,” Marguerite announced when they had made a quick tour of the merchant area.
“I really don’t think we should,” Astra interjected.
“Nonsense. It’s exactly the same as anything else at a market, Astra. You must look over the merchandise before you decide what you want. Myself, I fancy a big, lusty specimen. I’m tired of being reminded that I’m too tall for fashion. I want a man I can look up to instead of hunching over and trying to pretend I am some dainty feminine thing.” She grimaced.
“I also have a special fondness for blond men,” she continued. “Maybe even one with Saxon blood. I’ve heard they make good lovers and are willing to woo a girl with a fine piece of talk. Not like the Normans.” Marguerite made an even more disgusted face. “They are too grim and dreary, always obsessed with war, and next to that, land. What of you, Astra? What sort of husband do you fancy?”
Astra thought a moment. “Someone loyal and kind, and pious of course.”
“Bah! You’re not picking out a confessor, Astra, but a husband. Surely you can think of qualities you desire more than those. What of his features? His form?”
“I don’t know, Marguerite,” Astra answered. “I’ve had so little experience with men.”
“Indeed,” her friend whispered teasingly. “What about the day we spied upon the monks? Did you learn nothing then?”
Astra’s face flushed. She had tried to force the memory from her mind, but she could not forget the sight of a dozen naked men bathing in the river. Their bodies were pale and hairy, their private parts odd, dangling things that revolted Astra as much as fascinated her.
“In truth, the monks were not such fine-looking creatures, were they?” Marguerite admitted. “What we seek are handsome, virile young knights. Perhaps over there.”
Marguerite set off briskly for the part of the fair reserved for entertainments—jugglers and minstrels, cockfighting and dicing. Astra’s heart sank as they neared the crowded scene. If any young knights were to be found at the fair, it would likely be there. She hesitated, suddenly realizing she was not ready to learn about men quite yet. “Marguerite!” she called after her friend. “Can we not look for the spice booth now?”
Marguerite turned, frowning. “Since it is your first fair, Astra, I will humor you. But as soon as we are done there, I mean to discover some gentlemen.”
They followed their noses to the source of the alluring scents that wafted above the crude odors of people and food. Drawing near to a booth that offered rare condiments such as cinnamon and ginger, Astra closed her eyes and breathed deeply, enthralled by the sweet odors that brought to mind foreign, exotic places. Her reverie was broken when Marguerite whispered teasingly in her ear.
“Astra, time for your first lesson.”
Astra opened her eyes to see three knights approaching. They did not have on full armor, but they wore hauberks and carried swords at their sides, swaggering with the bravado of fighting men. To Astra they appeared threatening and evil. She reminded herself that no harm could come to her and Marguerite. The Fitz Hugh knights would protect them, wouldn’t they? Astra looked around and grew uneasy as she realized their escort was nowhere in sight.
“Marguerite,” Astra whispered. “Where are they? Where are your father’s men?”
“Those tiresome fools,” Marguerite scoffed. “They’re all as old as my father—and nearly as easy to deceive. We gave them the slip back by the cloth merchants.”
“We’re alone and unprotected!”
“Exactly,” Marguerite answered.
The knights continued to approach. Astra ducked into the spice booth and pretended to examine a packet of peppercorns, praying frantically the knights would pass them by. Her hopes were in vain, for as the three soldiers approached them, Marguerite deliberately dropped one of the velvet slippers she had just purchased. “Oh, how clumsy of me!” she exclaimed.
The three knights halted, and the largest one reached down and retrieved the dainty object.
“My lady,” he said. He handed it to Marguerite with a flourish.
“You are most kind, sir.” Marguerite smiled. She turned to Astra. “Oh, cousin, if only we had not lost track of Sir de Chilham and the rest of our escort. I have no one to carry my purchases, and am so affeared I shall lose something “
Astra gaped at her friend. It was bad enough they were unprotected, but to draw attention to their vulnerability before these dangerous-looking men—was Marguerite mad?
“My lady, we would be honored to serve you,” the nearest knight asserted. “Pray, spend your money freely, we will be happy to carry all that you buy.”
Astra looked the man over critically. He was not unpleasant to look at, with tousled fair hair and pale gray eyes. But there was something malevolent about him, an insincerity to his smile. The warmth of it did not reach his shrewd, unsettling eyes.
Astra put a hand on Marguerite’s arm, begging her silently to refuse. Of course, it was not to be. Marguerite was determined Astra should spend some time in the company of men.
The three soldiers trailed along as they walked among the merchant booths. Marguerite chattered merrily. Occasionally she stopped to purchase ribbons and combs and thread, inconsequential things she and Astra could have easily carried themselves. Once, they almost ran into one of the Fitz Hugh knights, but Marguerite deftly steered Astra into a leather shop before she could get the man’s attention.
Astra endured their masculine companions glumly. She’d had a chance to observe the three knights more closely, and proximity hadn’t enhanced her opinion. They seemed like coarse, ill-mannered louts, and their leader’s inept conversational skills made it clear he was not accustomed to escorting ladies. Marguerite carried the conversation, nay, dragged it along.
