My True Love (22 page)

“Did they?”

“There have been rumors for centuries that the Templars had the Grail in their possession. But they were disbanded in 1312. Most of them put to the sword or tortured. They never posed a threat to Langlinais.”

“But they might have.”

He nodded. “Perhaps the codex was protection, in a way.”

“But it cannot be the miracle she spoke of,” she said.

“I find myself as mystified by Juliana as you.”

Anne propped her chin on her hand and leaned toward him as he continued to read.

“‘The Templars accepted the Grail as real, but they trapped Sebastian and me at the fortress of Montvichet. The ruse had succeeded in satisfying their greed but nearly cost us our lives…’”

Stephen’s voice faded, and he turned to her. “I would have sent you to safety if I’d known Penroth was so close, Anne.”

Her hand reached out of its own volition, guided not by thought but by an instinct as old as time. When her fingers rested upon his hand, he smiled. Did he realize that his smiles came more often in the last few days? As if some little-known door had been opened inside him, and they’d all begun to spill out.

Each member of the Sinclair clan had contributed to rearing her, just as they had to educating her. Each bit of life wisdom had been instilled with an accompanying bit of physical emphasis. She’d been given a tap on the head or had her ears pulled when she was not paying attention. Her hand had been squeezed and she’d been pulled into a boisterous hug for doing right or for no reason other than for being Anne. She’d been patted and kissed so many times that as a child she’d wondered if she would have the imprint of a mouth or a pair of lips permanently embedded on her cheek.

It was obvious that Stephen was not used to such gestures. When she saw him as a child, hurting, swept away by grief, she’d wanted to comfort him. Even as a girl of eight she’d wanted to hold his hand or sit beside his bed and speak to him of silly things that might make him smile.

A feeling that had only grown through the years.

He had been so much a part of her life for so long that the shadow of him lingered, even as the reality of his presence took hold. Yet that image was less formidable than this man.

He ran his fingers over the top of her hand, tracing the undulations of her knuckles. It was as if he touched her intimately. Memories of other touches intruded. A stroke upon her naked stomach with his palm. A kiss to her nipple, a press of lips against her throat. Her eyelids fluttered shut as she was caught in a web of her own making. One crafted of memory and wishes.

“Anne.” A word of warning. A soft and low sound. How beautiful her name sounded when he said it.

She blinked open her eyes and smiled at him.

His eyes were dark. What was he thinking? Recalling memories as easily as she did? Of the moment she’d gasped into his mouth or clenched his shoulders so tightly that her nails had left her mark on him? She would go to sleep tonight with the thought of him and wake to the touch of his hands on her. But it would only be the sheet on her bare leg or the corner of the pillow brushing against her lips.

Wanton acts and even more wicked thoughts. No wonder the kirk preached against them. Even now the wish to be loved by him made her limbs feel heavy and the air so thick it was as if she bathed in it instead of breathed it.

With each stroke of his thumb across her flesh he divested her of a little more will. It was as if she’d discarded each restraining thought as she sat there, letting them trail down to the floor like a wafting kerchief.

Love me
. The words trembled in the air between them. Held silent by the knowledge that it was not the time or the place.
Do not leave me
. Selfish thoughts. His world was in jeopardy. A thousand swords glinted in the distance as soldiers arranged themselves for the sole purpose of harming this man.

She admired him, even as he sat beside her, a small smile playing on his lips. All the qualities that made him so perfect in her eyes were balanced by his failings. She’d heard him shout at William for something nonsensical and not deserving of the rebuke. And growl at Betty when she would have chastised him about eating more of cook’s soup. He was occasionally impatient, a perfectionist when it came to his orders being followed. He didn’t speak easily of those things that mattered to him, but she’d come to believe that she belonged on that list.

He had a streak of fierceness that accompanied war well and a layer of compassion that did not.

But enumerating his attributes and his faults did not explain why she loved him. For that she was left to the mercy of her mind and heart. It was simply so, and she accepted it as easily as this moment.

“Is all well with you, Anne?” he asked gently.

“No,” she said. She stood and he did, also. Then she extended her arms around him, laid her cheek against his chest. “Now all is well,” she said, with a small smile.

His hands came up slowly, reached her arms, and gripped them. It was a tender touch, one that swept from wrist to elbow.

He bent his head and whispered against her cheek, the words traveling in a slow, delicious trail to her ear.

“What troubles you?”

The future
.

But that, too, did not matter. Not as much as the touch of his arms around her and the solid thump of his heart.

She pulled herself back and looked into his face. There was an implacable resolve that told her he wanted an answer.

There had been too many times when she could have told him about her visions not to recognize that this was not one of them. Still, she laid the bricks in place for the wall that would be erected between them by his disbelief.

“Have you ever had something happen,” she asked him, “that changed your life?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, a half smile on his lips. “War has that effect.”

“Have you never had something occur that confused you? That you could barely believe at the same time you welcomed it?”

“I met a woman once, who knew of my childhood hiding place although no one had shown her. She spoke my name before we had met.”

He had never before mentioned these things, leading her to believe that he had forgotten. Or had not noticed.

She stepped back. Her hands fell to her sides. Her heart pounded so hard that she could barely breathe. Had the moment been forced upon her, then? The truth, spoken when it was not convenient, but when he demanded it?

A knock spared her.

“My lord?” they heard William call from the other side of the door. “Penroth’s camp is signal ing. Shall we let the messenger through?”

Stephen called out for him to enter. When he did, he answered the question, his gaze still not leaving her face. “Yes,” he said. “Give him safe passage.”

They stood for just a few moments looking at each other, a silent island in the presence of William and behind him other members of the regiment.

Then someone asked a question, and the bond was broken.

Chapter 19

“I
t’s all your fault, you know, that you’re trapped here,” Hannah said.

“I’m not trapped,” Richard said with some equanimity. He moved his chess piece and sat back. “I simply took advantage of Stephen’s offer and settled into a room here. After all, I had two patients to treat.”

“You might be back at your own house.”

“True enough, but how would I live without your biting wit? Your dulcet tones?”

She smiled at him. It appeared to discompose him more than her frown.

“I want to be gone from here,” she said, moving her pawn. She had no hope of winning this silly game, but it appeared to give him pleasure if she at least made the pretense of wanting to.

“Why? Have you some pressing need?”

She looked at him in amazement. “Other than ten thousand bloodthirsty troops ready to slaughter me in my bed?”

“Six thousand,” he corrected. “Can’t be more than that. Maybe a few hundred less.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You seem too calm, Richard.”

“I am quaking in my boots. However, I’d rather put on a show of courage for your sake, Hannah.”

“For my sake?”

“Indeed,” he said, smiling. “It seems to irritate you. Besides, if the truth be known, they are Parliamentarians. Surely I am safe enough.”

“I do hope they take that into account when starving us out.”

He lifted one eyebrow.

“Is that your only reason for wishing to be gone from here?”

“Cannot I simply want to be safe?”

He shook his head. “You are much too devious for that. You have a streak of cunning about you, my dear, that’s not altogether wholesome. However, I confess to wanting to be a pirate at one time, so it strikes me as altogether fascinating. Would it have something to do with Anne?”

“I am not cunning.”

“Have you never called her daughter?”

A chess piece rolled to the edge of the table, hung in the air for a long moment before clattering to the floor. She stared at him open-mouthed.

“Has no one ever commented on the resemblance?”

Numbly she shook her head.

“I am not merely speaking of appearance, my dear, but of temperament. She appears to have a stubborn bent, just as you do.”

“I am not stubborn.”

“Next you’ll tell me that you’re a fragile flower of Scotland.”

“I’m English.”

“That explains the acerbic wit. I understood the Scots to be more dour of nature.”

“How did you know, Richard?”

He did not, thankfully, pretend to misunderstand her. “When she turns her head, she looks like you. And when she smiles in a certain way. I see also, Hannah, although I hesitate to offend you by saying so, a youthful Anne in your flashes of humor.”

“No one has ever known.”

“I doubt that. Perhaps they never commented upon it.”

“There was never occasion to see us together,” she said, looking down at the table.

He sat back, all pretense of being absorbed in the game gone. “There is no reason to look so stricken, Hannah. There are too many young girls who’ve found themselves in your plight. I’ve delivered my share of babies born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

“I didn’t want that for her. To be thought of that way.” She lifted her eyes. He was looking at her, a warm expression on his face. Not the revulsion she’d expected to find should anyone ever discover that she’d been both wanton and unwise.

“What happened, Hannah?”

She said nothing for a moment. She had never told the story. How odd that it should feel right to do so now. “I fell in love with a man I could not have. A common enough tale.”

“But you are not a common woman. There must be more to it.”

She smiled, thinking that he really was possessed of a deadly charm.

“Robbie was married. A fact I did not discover until it was too late. He returned to Scotland, and I remained in England. My parents banished me when they discovered I was with child. There was no one to turn to who would welcome a woman in my condition.”

“So you traveled to Scotland.”

She glanced up, surprised. She nodded. “The journey took longer than I’d expected. I had little money and walked a good deal of the way. Every once in a while a farmer would let me ride in his wagon. But eventually, I reached Dunniwerth.”

“I imagine you were a great shock to your Robbie.”

She gave a small smile. The years had taken the sting of pain from that time.

“He was stunned to see me. So was his wife. But something good always comes from something bad. At least that’s what my grandmother always used to tell me. They had been married seven years, and Maggie had never been able to have a child.”

“So the story was put about that Anne was Maggie’s child. What was to happen to you?”

“If I wanted to stay, I was to remain on the island at Dunniwerth and become the wise woman.”

“A harsh payment.”

She shook her head. “No, not really. I had no place else to go, and this way, I could at least be near Anne. For a time after she was born, Maggie came to stay with me. It was given out that she was recovering from the birth. I nursed Anne until they found a wetnurse for her.”

She stood, folded her arms around her waist. Those days had been among the most painful of her life. She’d watched that small face and known a love like she’d never believed possible. When she’d handed Anne over to Maggie on that last day and watched her walk away from the cottage, she’d wanted to die. She’d prayed for it, in fact. But death did not come that easily. Gradually she had begun to live again. To take an interest in the world around her. It was a pleasant life, one without highs or lows. Still, there were moments that sufficed for pleasure and contentment.

“I didn’t see her again for eight years,” she said, recalling the day Anne had come to her doorway. Her heart had nearly stopped with the joy of it. The first thought she’d had was that Robbie had taken pity on her loneliness and longing and had sent her daughter to her.

“What did you do all those years, Hannah? How did you bear it?”

“I went to fairs in the autumn. Tilled my garden.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Grew herbs and learned how to heal broken wings and ease the suffering of an animal that escaped from a trap.” She smiled. “And became a friend to the daughter I loved so well. Those moments were among the most precious of my life.”

“It is no wonder you’ve a wagging tongue,” he said with a gentle smile. “You’ve no one to talk to all this time.”

She began to smile, then to laugh, understanding that he used insults the way other men used flattery, to coax and cajole. She didn’t bother to tell him that it worked. Her mood was lighter than it had been a moment ago. By his smug smile he told her he knew only too well.

He studied her. “You’re afraid it will happen again.”

She turned and stared at him. “You have an uncomfortable knack of doing that, Richard.”

“Of doing what? Keeping you off balance? It is my ambition, my dear, since your bandages were removed.”

“Don’t call me my dear.”

“I’ve been doing so all along. Have you just now noticed?”