The Holding - Book 1 in The Medieval Knights Series (37 page)

William shrugged arrogantly. "I make no claim that we French have exclusive rights to the malady, but we most assuredly have the market on the cure. Would you hear of it?"

"Mayhap I had better, before you puff with Frankish pride upon this additional feat of your people; verily, the list of your..."

"Superiority?" he supplied helpfully.

"Arrogance," she answered, "grows longer by the hour. You had best tell me, though I have near forgotten what you intended to say."

"Then allow me to remind you," he said softly. "You, dear wife, have a malady, and its name is hunger, insatiable hunger."

"I am not hungry."

"But you are. I can hear your body's call."

"My body makes no sound," she denied, afraid that her stomach rumbled and that he could hear.

"Nay, there is no sound, but still I hear it call. You are hungry for me, Cathryn." His fingers brushed the rim of her delicate jaw, and his mouth hovered close above hers. "Is that not so?"

"Is this the malady?" she hedged.

"Do you hunger for me, wife?" he demanded gently.

"And what is the cure?" she countered.

"Do you want me, Cathryn?" he demanded again, with greater force.

His face was so close, and it was a closeness she yearned for with greater intensity with each hour she spent with him. The sun gleamed with blue light on his black curls; his eyes were as darkly gray as thunderclouds, his skin as fine as silk. Yes, she wanted him.

"I want you," she said in a whisper.

William smiled in satisfaction. Strangely, she was not the least offended by it.

"Then here is the cure: the best and most proven method for curing insatiability of any sort is overindulgence." Cathryn's eyes widened as she leaned into his caressing hand upon her face.
"Aye,
wife," William said into her dawning comprehension, "you will be given a steady and abundant diet of me. I will fill you to completion and you
will
be satisfied."

"This cure will not work," she said with a smile.

"Because it is Frankish?" William asked with a slight frown.

"Nay, William," she said softly, "because I will not be cured of you."

Her dark eyes glowed her love and passion for him, yet he was ever conscious of Rowland. Leaning down to her, William kissed her softly and sensually on the lips for a brief moment and then let her mount fall behind. It was folly to have baited her that way; if he'd let his body have its way, they would have tumbled from their horses and rolled upon the path like two animals. If Cathryn kept looking at him the way she was now and saying such provocative things, he just might tumble her anyway.

"I suspect you say such because it is a French cure," he teased when she was well away from his hand.

"I say such because I have a French husband," she answered very quietly, looking at his back.

He heard her. He made no reply, but he had heard. And he smiled in full satisfaction.

"We must make camp," Rowland called. "There are no houses near or monasteries where we might be welcomed for the night. I am sorry, Lady Cathryn, that you must sleep upon the ground."

Thinking of her conversation with William, she had little expectation of sleeping on the ground, but she said nothing to Rowland.

"Nay, be not sorry. It is high adventure for me," she called back happily.

Rowland, knowing what he did of her, should not have been surprised by her answer, yet he was. She was a woman of remarkable character and resiliency of spirit. William had been given a gift most fine when he received Greneforde and its lady.

Yet there was danger. Lambert lurked and could not stay his hand much longer. Tomorrow, late, they would reach the king. If an attack was made, it would be better neither too close to Greneforde nor too close to court.

Rowland watched as William pulled off the small cart path they followed. There was an abandoned and derelict remnant of a shepherd's hut just visible in the waning light. The wind had kicked up with the passage of the sun across the sky and the weather was brisk. Cathryn needed shelter in which to rest, even such shelter as this.

William looked back, and Rowland nodded his approval. Rowland watched as William's eyes lingered on his wife. He was decided with that look. Once settled and fed, he would circle the area for signs of recent human passage and he would sleep, however lightly, in full view of the night sky. Let William and Cathryn have their privacy.

The meal was cold—venison, bread, wine—but it was rich fare on such a cold night, and the company was sweet. William would allow no fire, but the night sky was clear and bright with stars. Even in the gloom of the hut, through the open wind holes and the large hole in the roof, Cathryn could see the silvery gleam of his eyes.

She knew that she would taste of "the cure" tonight.

Rowland wiped his fingers on a scrap of cloth that had been a part of their bundle and rose quietly. William watched him expectantly.

"I will go now," Rowland declared, "but I will be near."

William and Cathryn watched him go with inhospitable eagerness, with no words offered to delay his leaving. Rowland took no offense; in fact, he smiled. Those newly married were not known for their manners.

A gust of wind heralded his passage into the darkness of the doorless doorway, and then he was gone. Cathryn looked at William, a smile of anticipation lighting her features.

"How do you fare, wife?" he asked, keeping his distance from her. "Did the venison suit your tastes?"

"Yea, 'twas most succulent," she answered demurely.

"And the wine? I note you did not consume your usual portion, but a bare two cups," he prodded. "You are not ill?"

Never again would she need wine to bolster her courage to face the rigors of the bedchamber, and well he knew it, but she would play this game with him and not be found the loser.

"Nay, I feel quite well," Cathryn answered easily.

"No malady afflicts you?" he asked just as easily.

"'Tis strange the meaning you French twist onto a word," she said to the air, "but, nay, I lay claim to no malady."

"With no malady, there need be no cure," he said in a low voice.

"Again the twist, but I say again that I cannot be cured. What say you, husband—will you attempt the impossible?" Cathryn challenged.

"Yea," William answered, rising to his feet, "I attempt any and all."

Cathryn rose with him, ready to accept his embrace, gleeful that she had not risen to William's bait but had instead taunted him into rising to hers. Her back was to the doorway as she stood, and William had taken only one step when she felt a blade pressed against the line of her jaw. William stopped and drew his sword free in one motion, yet he did not proceed beyond that. The blade was sharp that pricked Cathryn's flesh.

Cathryn felt the knife shift against her throat, and the man holding her from behind came into view.

The night was black, but the stars were bright in that cloudless sky. She saw him clearly.

"Nay!" she whispered, the blood chilling within her at the sight.

"Yea, Cat, I have not forgotten you, as you can see. Would I be vain if I assumed that you have not forgotten me?"

It was Lambert, his massive ring gleaming in the cold light of the night. His ring caught her attention as the knife could not. She had so many memories of the hand that bore that ring. It was that hand, that ring, that had scarred her brow and that marked her still. Cathryn reached up a tentative hand to feel the ridge of the scar. Yes, it was there still. He had marked her.

Nothing had changed.

Lambert was here, touching her. His hand was heavy, so unlike William's. He stared at her, his eyes so pale a blue as to be almost white, paler than a winter sky, so different from William's stormy gray. Lambert. He was back. He was touching her. He had her.

And there was room in her mind for none other, not even for herself. There was no thought of the jeweled knife that was within easy reach of her hand. She had no defense and would offer none.

The cold descended not from without, but from within, as if the eternal and irreversible coldness of all the dead that had ever died rose from within some secret part of her to welcome her to their number.

She embraced the cold willingly.

She went with them eagerly, for who could harm the dead?

And William saw her swift and icy retreat into herself and feared for her. This danger was greater than the knife at her throat; this was the death of her spirit.

"Still the quiet cat, but that is one of your virtues. Cat," Lambert said with silken insincerity. "'Tis well you still have it. You have so little virtue left."

The sound of malignant snickering pricked something within her, and she turned to the sound. As if through a long tunnel, she saw that William was being held by two of Lambert's men. Two swords were pressed against him, each against his torso. He was unarmed. William made no move, no sound, but his eyes never left her face. She scarcely noticed. But some small voice inside of her remarked upon the fact that those two knights were dirty. Very dirty.

A shiver of laughter shook her. She was mad to notice such a thing, for it did not matter. Could anyone be as dirty as she?

"You still tremble for me, Cat." Lambert grinned. "You have not forgotten."

No, she had not forgotten, though she had thought so for a small span of hours, but that had been a dream and this was waking. William was the dream, and she looked at him with eyes of glassy stillness, eyes empty of thought and of emotion, and then she looked away as she felt Lambert's hand trace with heavy precision the curve from breast to hip. She knew what was to come and she could not bear for William to witness it. In looking away, she closed the door on William and locked it.

Lambert would have her; she could only pray that he would take her where William could not see her degradation. Somehow that mattered more than anything. She could almost accept his invasion of her body, almost...

She did not understand that her cold submission was evidence of the dying of her spirit. But William understood.

He had never seen her so cold, so detached from her surroundings; she was becoming detached from herself. She was distancing herself from him with every breath she took, shunting him to one side along with all the newly found warmth that he had kindled within her. This withdrawal was blindingly swift and mortally deep. She would not survive this.

William, silent in battle, never voicing a cry, watched the woman who shared his soul being pushed to the hard-packed dirt of the hut.

"Cathryn!" he said hoarsely, pressing against the points of the blades, unaware that they pierced him, unaware that his blood stained his tunic before running in a fragile stream to the floor.

Guichardet and Beuves dared press him no further. Lambert had claimed the right to kill le Brouillard, as he had claimed the right to his wife, yet they knew no other way to keep him immobilized.

"Cathryn," William repeated, "he has no claim on you!"

The swords pierced deeper into the muscle that banded his ribs, unnoticed. Guichardet and Beuves looked at each other in growing discomfort. How to stop a man who did not heed a sword in his side? Guichardet enjoyed a moment of rueful self-congratulation; had he not said again and again that le Brouillard was a knight to reckon with?

"You have been given to me by God and by king and I will not relinquish you, wife!" William shouted, demanding that she hear his words and know their truth.

Beuves and Guichardet threw down their useless swords in tandem and grabbed William's arms to keep him back from his wife. And then William knew that they would not kill him, at least not yet, and that gave him the advantage, for he had no compunction about killing them at any time.

"Fight for yourself as I fight for you!" he commanded her. "Wife!"

And, as if through a deadening fog, she heard him.

She was William's wife. She belonged to him. She did not belong to Lambert.

Lambert's meaty hand was upon her skirts, pulling them up, the air chill on her skin. With her hand, she grabbed his wrist to stop him.

Nothing that she could have said or done would have shocked him more.

Cat did not resist, not after that first time when he had cuffed her and sent her brother to his grave. He had cured her of fighting him.

And when Lambert did nothing to her in his shock, Cathryn gained courage. She pushed against his bulk with her arms and kicked at the hand that was held motionless against her leg. Lambert came out of his shock. What had worked once would work again. Mayhap Cat had forgotten a few things. He would remind her.

With brutal force, Lambert lashed her face with the broad back of his hand.

Her head rang with dizzying pain for many seconds, and she stopped her resistance. Lambert chuckled his satisfaction and drew her skirts up to her hips. The rush of air on the juncture of her legs cleared her head quickly enough and she lunged, trying to throw him off.

She had not seen the blow coming, though she had expected it. With the strike, knowledge burst upon her with such blinding clarity that it rivaled the force of the blow; Lambert could not kill her. To kill her would be to lose all chance at Greneforde. If he would not kill her, then she had nothing more to fear from him; he had already done his worst. Again and again she had endured his worst. She would not endure it even once more.