The Protector (5 page)

M
ORVAN SAW ANNA AS SOON
as she passed through the portal. He stood at the entrance to the shelter watching the night sky, identifying the constellations that had been taught to him by his tutor when he was a boy.

He had known that she would come. He had been waiting for her.

Her hair had been combed into something smoother and less wild, and a band of silver circled her forehead and tamed it further. She had changed into a blue long-sleeved tunic that fell just past her knees, leaving a glimpse of hose-clad legs above felt shoes.

“I have brought you supper,” she said.

Morvan held open the canvas and she swept inside. He moved the table and chair near one of the cots by the fire as she set aside the box she'd been carrying.

“Will you join me?”

She shook her head but accepted some wine. She settled into the chair, back stiff and knees together. He could barely keep his eyes off her as he set out the food. She sat like a queen. Like an ancient warrior queen.

She leveled that gaze at him. He realized that it wasn't so frank and confident as he had thought, but contained a guarded caution.

“Sir Morvan, I do not know you well. If you would prefer to be alone, I will leave. But if you desire company, I will stay a while.”

“I would have you stay.”

He sat on the cot and picked at his food. The silence stretched, and he was grateful that she made no attempt to fill it with witless chatter. This woman was not afraid of quiet. She would not speak until she had something to say. In the meantime the mood was companionable and relaxing.

He looked at her on occasion while he ate. The blue tunic fit better than the afternoon's clothes and she had removed her cloak, but her form still looked ambiguous, as if her woman's body took refuge beneath the loosely shaped wool. Her lovely face wore a mask of serene calm. In a curious way her arrival had made this death house a friendly and natural space. He felt more ease than he had experienced in many months.

“Where is your home?” she finally asked.

He would have her stay, but not to talk about him. On the other hand, she had a right to be curious. After all, he'd made it a point to find out about her.

“My family lived in the north near Scotland. An estate called Harclow.”

“Lived?”

“Fourteen years ago, during the Scottish wars, our
lands were besieged by a lord from across the border. My father died defending the castle. I was a boy at the time. It was left to me to surrender in order to save my mother and sister. We went to King Edward, who was campaigning in the north, and he gave us refuge. He had been my father's friend.”

She waited for him to continue. He paused a long while, then relented. “My mother died soon after. Edward took my sister and myself into his household.”

“You lived at court?”

“When of age I went into service with Sir John Chandros. Later I became one of the King's household knights. But most of those years were spent at court.”

“What was it like?”

“It is a false place with false people. Your future hinges on a word, a gesture.”

She looked straight at him and he looked straight back. Her eyes were almond-shaped, and her brows angled like the wings of a falcon in flight.

“Did a word or a look unhinge your future?”

Damn, but the woman was sharp. “Three years ago I fell out of favor with the prince. Around the same time I realized that the King would not help me regain our lands. When the army went to Normandy to fight the French king, I rode with Edward, but I knew that I would not return to the court with him. I earn my living by my sword now. It is honorable.”

She sipped her wine thoughtfully, holding the cup with both hands. Her rod-straight back had not moved an inch.

“Did you have many tournaments and jousts at the court? I have heard that many kings no longer permit them because they waste knights. Fewer men to die in their battles then.”

“Spoken like a woman, my lady.”

“You think so? This woman would like to fight in such a festival. One where all weapons are used. Jousts rely on the lance too much. Do you favor the lance?”

“I prefer the sword, but the lance is still considered the most chivalrous weapon.” He couldn't believe that he was discussing weaponry with this woman, and thoroughly enjoying himself doing so. “Which weapon do you favor?”

“The bow. The coward's weapon. I am a woman, Sir Morvan.”

“I would say that is obvious.”

“Hardly. Many people don't notice. Even you at first.”

She had missed both the compliment and the appreciative look he had given her. Utterly oblivious to both. Amazing. “The longhouse was dark. I saw what I expected to see.”

“Most do. It is very useful. When I ride alone, strangers see what they expect to see too.”

“Do you do that often? Ride alone? It is dangerous. The roads are full of displaced soldiers and peasants. With the war and the plague—”

“I have duties to perform, and too few men to always bring an escort.”

She had finally relaxed, and her long, lithe body had fallen into sinuous lines. He noticed again that the legs visible below the tunic were slender and shapely. Firm straight shoulders balanced the gentle flare of her hips. He wondered what her breasts looked like. The rest of her seemed beautifully proportioned to her height.

“You find me amusing, don't you?” she asked, misunderstanding his scrutiny. “The clothes and sword. My questions about tournaments. You think that I am a girl playing at being a man.”

“I find you unusual.”

“Unusual. A kinder word than most would use.”

“Does that offend you?”

“Not at all. I do not care what people think. A woman who looks like me must learn that. Unusual. Not a bad word. Still, you do not approve.”

“You are very brave. Who can disapprove of that? Still, I am accustomed to women being protected.”

“Aye, protected. And commanded. They go together, don't they?” She turned her head to the fire for a moment, and then looked back and deliberately changed the subject. “You intend to try and regain your lands still.”

“It has been my hope.”

“But each year that passes, it becomes more unlikely.” She said it like she was finishing his own thought, and she was, but it was a thought that he rarely admitted to. Still, he found that he couldn't summon any anger.

Since she had come he hadn't felt like he was with a stranger, but rather in the company of an old friend. That first long silence had been filled with an oddly familiar connection that had gotten deeper as they spoke. Every passing moment had served to ply an invisible cord, like a tether between their souls.

Was it her frankness? His need for distraction? All he knew was that his sense of this woman's spirit was heightened. The air in the shelter was heavy with a peculiar intensity. An intimacy. He felt raw and oddly free.

“Why do you wear men's clothes?” he asked, much preferring to talk about her than himself.

She raised her eyebrows in amusement. “Why do
you
wear men's clothes?”

“I am a man.”

“Nay. You wear them because they suit men's work. That is why they are men's clothes. I find myself doing
men's work now.” She smiled. It was a nice smile. It animated her face. She didn't smile often these days. He just knew that. “They were my brother's garments. I began wearing them to work with our horses. Then, with the death, gowns became impractical. I didn't come home with many gowns anyway.”

“From the abbey? Did you live there from girlhood?”

“Nay, only four years. When my father went to fight in the duke's cause, he put me there for safety. One of his vassals gave a home to Catherine, my sister, but I was not welcome. I did not like the abbey at first, but I found contentment there.”

“Ascanio says that you will go back. That you will take vows.”

“Aye.”

“Why?”

She looked away and did not answer at once. He sensed vulnerability in her, and was pleased to find it. “I belong there. There is no place for me in the world outside of there,” she finally said.

“There is here. With your people.”

“There is no place for me here. I won't marry and I do not like women's things. You kindly call me unusual. My people think that I am unnatural.”

“They think that you are
super
natural.”

“It is the same thing. Today I am a saint. Next year the crops fail and I am a witch. It is a thin line that I walk through no choice of my own.”

She abruptly rose and fetched the box she had brought. “Your meal is done? Then let us play draughts.”

He poured more wine while she set out the pieces. He had expected a desperate night, but the shadow of death had been banished by this woman's presence and the
strange bond he felt with her. He made his first move and watched as she considered her own.

He had to know if she was with him in the way that he thought.

“It is strange, but since you came I have had this feeling that I have known you … years.” He spoke words that he had used before in flattery and seduction. This was the first time he had ever meant them.

“Aye. It happens sometimes.” Her gaze rose to meet his, and it was as if she could see into his heart and knew him like a mother knows a son, or a woman her husband. “It comes from you. You expect to die. You have nothing to lose. You are open. I am just the one who is here. If Ascanio had come instead of me, it would have been the same. But I know what you mean.”

She had felt this before. It was an astounding thought. He continued the game in silence. He could tell she did not want to speak of it.

She may have been here before, but she was wrong about one thing. If Ascanio had come it would not have been the same. Because Anna was a woman, and Morvan had been aware for some time that he wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman before in his life.

“Tell me about Josce,” he said, in a futile attempt to distract his thoughts from that. But his blood told him how this night should end. He needed to touch her. He wanted to take the silver band from her head and stroke out her curls with his fingers until her hair swept wild and free again.

“He is a kinsman. Distant. He came as a page, to be fostered. He was my father's squire, and at his side when he died.”

He wanted to kiss her. Taste her mouth and her neck.
Smell her. He wanted to bend that rigid back over his arm and have her look up at him as he caressed her, as his hand found the lacing to her tunic….

“He is like a brother to me. But his relationship with Catherine has been something more for several years.”

He would undress her and discover the body beneath those loose garments. He imagined her hidden breasts as he held them in his hands and took them in his mouth. Her moans of desire filled his head. In his mind's eye, a veil of yielding passion softened her penetrating gaze. He would lay her down, and cover her with his hands and mouth and finally his body….

“My father's will assumed my brother would inherit and that I would take vows. Now, with my brother Drago gone, when Catherine and Josce marry, Josce will be the next lord of La Roche de Roald.”

He had seen her ecstasy when she galloped her horse. He wanted to watch her as he took her and that sensual oblivion claimed her for him alone. He would control her and bring her with him, their union finishing what he felt here tonight. Completing it …

“Sir Morvan,” her voice intruded and brought him back.

Was he mad? He had confessed and was clean. Yet here he sat, contemplating the seduction of a virgin touched by angels and dedicated to God. But it felt as though heaven itself was part of this temptation.

“Sir Morvan,” she repeated, tapping the board. “It is your move.”

He shifted a piece and then watched her again with that unsettling gaze. Anna had been trained in restraint and serenity at the abbey, but her studied reserve hid dismay.

She had lied to him. She had suggested that she had felt this before, but she had not. The connection was always a possibility when she cared for the dying, but this had been more immediate than ever before. Even with Ascanio, when they had both reached out in their fear of the abyss awaiting them, even then it had built more slowly.

Later, during the plague, she had feared this unnatural intimacy and the love and pain that it brought. It made the death harder on her. She had been grateful that with most of the sick she could just be mistress and nurse and nothing more.

And now this. Different. Stronger. Somehow even dangerous.

He wanted something more. She could feel his spirit stretching toward her.

She kept the conversation going, because the pauses became filled with an acute expectation that unnerved her. She told of her attempts to settle the estate's future so it would be secured for Brittany. She told him about her many letters to the duke in England, asking for a warden's appointment, and for permission for Catherine to marry.

She described her problems keeping the estate protected. How, when her brother took sick, some men-at-arms fled and how, with the death, more died. In the end Ascanio had recruited and trained some sons of free-holders on the estate. The plague had given them a respite of sorts, but already problems were starting again and a band of thieves had been harassing the area.

And then, in the middle of her description of the castle's history, Morvan asked, “Why won't you marry?”

“If you marry,” he went on, “the estate would be yours.”

“If I marry, the estate would be my husband's.”

“Still, you would have a place.”

She did not want to talk about this. She could never expect anyone, let alone this
man
, to understand. “Only the place my husband let me have. A woman's place, serving him. I would rather serve God.”

“If you want freedom, there is little of that in the abbey.”

“More than you think. For a married noblewoman there is none. The villeins in the fields and the merchant's daughter in town have more. My nature is not suited for such a life and I will not turn myself into something I am not to please a husband.”

He appeared to study the draughts very closely. “Will you not miss things?”